Plumtree backs Deans to be a success
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:08
Planning the long road ahead: Wallabies coach Robbie Deans. (c) Gallo
Sharks coach John Plumtree has backed fellow kiwi Robbie Deans to close the gap on the Springboks and the All Blacks before next year's Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
Deans and Plumtree worked together within the All Blacks set-up from 2001-2002 and the Sharks boss was able to visit his old colleague this week at the Wallabies training base in Durban.
Plumtree admitted that moving from the wining culture at the Crusaders to a building phase at the Wallabies must have been a "big eye-opener" for Deans.
"He sees everything as a challenge and I guess going from a winning culture to what he's had to endure now has been, even for him, a big eye-opener," Plumtree told AAP.
"He'll know that the goal is that World Cup.
"I guess if you'd say Robbie was struggling, imagine if a mere mortal was there, he wouldn't have won one game.
"Obviously the job's huge and Australia doesn't have the
player base like we've got in New Zealand or South Africa so the depth is not there.
"He'll be doing the best he can, that's for sure, knowing the bloke."
While Australia run the risk of completing a second successive Tri-Nations with only a solitary win to show for a hard fought campaign, there is still time for Deans to mould his young side into world beaters before next year's World Cup.
"I guess the toughest thing for them has been the fact they haven't been able to play their full strength side with the amount of injuries that they've had," Plumtree said.
"They lose a fair bit of grunt up front without their No.1 tighthead [Ben Alexander] and also without (hooker Tatafu) Polota-Nau, he's a big player for them, our guys have got a lot of respect for him.
"The Australians have been pretty competitive but without being full strength, which has got to be a positive.
"You get James Horwill back,
[Peter] Hynes [and] all of a sudden you're going to get that little bit of depth and the bench becomes a lot stronger.
"It's going to be important to Australia's challenge that they do get those players back fit."
Plumtree has warned the Springboks not to write off the Wallabies ahead of the Tri-Nations clash in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
"You look at the way they played [in Pretoria], they didn't tire by the looks and that's probably been an issue in the past playing on the highveld," he said.
"You probably have to give a fair bit of credit to the conditioning, they were right in it until the end."