‘Best leadership’: Wallabies skipper salutes Cummins
Ian Chadband |
Australia rugby captain Harry Wilson believes the cricketing ‘sandpapergate’ saga has highlighted the dangers of a “fractured” changing room that his Wallabies want to avoid.
But big cricket lover Wilson has also been left saluting the way his counterpart Pat Cummins has handled all the controversy this week, praising the “best leadership” of the Test skipper.
Wilson, currently at the helm of a struggling outfit on a run of three heavy Test defeats, reflected that there was still complete unity in his team’s dressing room on the eve of a big Nations Championship clash against Scotland.
But he’s been watching all the recriminations play out over Usman Khawaja’s claims of ball-tampering on the 2018 cricket tour of South Africa and believes it’s offered a lesson to his side and other sports.
“It just shows how tight you want your dressing room to be, and you don’t want those fractures,” Wilson said, when asked about the week’s dramas in Edinburgh on Saturday.
“It’s been interesting reading and seeing it all. Obviously I don’t know the situation, but I thought Pat Cummins’ 70-minute press conference yesterday was pretty impressive, some of the best leadership I’ve ever seen by an Australian leader.
“Just to answer every question, I couldn’t imagine the amount of fatigue he would have had by the end of it.
“It’s a bit of a crazy time back in Australia right now about it all, but I really hope I see that Test team just come together as one and have a great summer.”
Wilson, a fine batter himself in his Queensland schooldays, also revealed how former national cricket coach Justin Langer had addressed the Wallabies before their victory over world champions South Africa about this issue of shed unity.
“He just questioned us on how close was our changing room, because you’re only as good as your changing room, and he challenged us on that.
“That’s something we’ve really reflected on, and I believe we’ve got a really good changing room. We’re at a place where we want to challenge each other, we want to be better, and want to keep moving forward as a group.
“You definitely look when stuff like that’s happening in different codes or whatever, and reflect on it, and you can also see the sort of leadership Pat’s shown for his players over the last few days, that he’s a leader the team would want to get behind.”
The unity may be there for Wilson’s Wallabies but the results haven’t been, and they’ve been studying that South Africa win, the epitome of their finest spirit, with the urgent hope of recovering the “ruthless mindset” they had on that memorable August day in Perth.
“We know Scotland are coming off a tough loss to the All Blacks and we know how much they’ll want to bounce back too, and it’s going to be two teams really going at it and wanting this result. I just hope we’ll be in for a really good shot,” said Wilson.
“Seven days is a long time in rugby,” he added, reflecting on the 45-22 loss to England, “and we need to show it’s a long time in rugby, because we need to be better.
“I’ve got so much confidence in this group tomorrow to go out there and do Australia proud – but we’ve got to do it.”
AAP