Rocky anticipates improved England
Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom has challenged his team to improve in the belief opponents England will be a different proposition in Saturday's second Cook Cup Test.
Australia claimed a 27-17 victory over the tourists in Perth last weekend, despite England's forwards smashing the Wallabies scrum, resulting in two penalty tries as the referee lost patience with the Australians.
Coach Robbie Deans has stuck with the same forward pack for Saturday's match at ANZ Stadium and Elsom has put his players on notice that if England's scrum dominates again, the result could be very different.
"It certainly doesn't help," Elsom said when asked if Australia would be able to get away with another sub-par scrummaging display.
"I think they're (England) probably going to look to change things up.
"Even though last week we managed to get on top of them, there were parts of their game they wouldn't have been happy with and there were things that they did that they didn't want to do.
"I can't really tell you exactly what they're going to do, but I'd imagine there'd be some differences.
"I'd imagine they haven't come here to lose."
One of those changes that Elsom and the Australians had been anticipating was the addition of 2003 World Cup hero Jonny Wilkinson to the England starting XV.
But much to Elsom's surprise, coach Martin Johnson has kept Wilkinson on the bench.
"They probably know their system more than us but yeah we definitely expected that," he said.
"They probably play their best footy when they attack well and we saw at the end of the Six Nations they were more attacking side than they sometimes showed and they play better like that and that's probably what they're looking to do."
While inexperienced front-row trio Salesi Ma'afu, Saia Faingaa and Ben Daley copped most of the criticism for the scrum problems in Perth, Elsom said the responsibility lay with the entire pack.
And he said despite the trio sharing a combined total of just five caps, they had handled the criticism well during the week.
"I think that there's been a lot of pressure put on them and they've responded pretty well," Elsom said.
"I think that's the key in that sort of situation, how they respond and during the week their application to the work has been fantastic.
"But again you won't really know how they're going until they get out there and how they respond in the match.
"When you're scrummaging it's all eight. As much as the focus gets directed at them they either get a hell of a lot of support from behind or they don't get it.
"We're seeing it as a whole eight thing."
"It's about the combinations and how they work together, I think that was the key. You look at the guys there, we've got some good scrummagers, Salesi has been one of the best scrummagers in the Super 14.
"It's just about working together and that combination sometimes takes time and they came up against an English side who had their combinations pretty well down pat."
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