How Skelton is helping the Wallabies defend mauls, even from afar

Udine: The city of Udine has a selection of the finest pizza, pasta, pastries and wine that Italy has to offer on every corner of its ancient centre. However, the Wallabies have been digesting something far less appetising, reviewing their failure to defend an English rolling maul that rumbled almost 25 metres and resulted in British and Irish Lions hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie scoring his side’s final try last weekend.

Will Skelton might not be available for the Wallabies this week, but hooker Billy Pollard is still learning from the giant second-rower’s ability to stop a maul.

“It would be his aggression, he’s extremely aggressive,” Pollard said. “It also helps to grow eight inches and put on another 60 kilos, but he’s also quite smart in that area too, so when you add all those together, he’s extremely valuable to any team in the world.

“So, yeah, for us [in defending mauls], as I said, it would mainly just be his aggression.”

Pollard was on the bench when England captain Maro Itoje took a lineout and, after coming down, started the maul that proved impossible for the Wallabies to stop. The Brumbies hooker said the Australians had pored over their maul defence this week with various causes diagnosed.

“The first thing is communication, once you get that communication, everyone understands their roles and then from that, they can perform it,” Pollard said.

It was a difficult day for the Wallabies at Twickenham last weekend. Credit: AP

“From what we’ve reviewed, there’s certainly a lot of learnings we can take from it, but it all starts from communication.

“You get that right, everyone’s on the same page and when you’re on the same page, you can execute your role and then you don’t get that momentum shift that it’s really hard to come back from.

“We obviously take full ownership for what happened, it was just a matter of a compound of errors, maybe not getting our roles right initially – and then when you get a team as good as that, when they get going forward, it’s always going to be really hard to stop them ... but we need to stop it at source.”

The Wallabies’ next opponents Italy scored an almost identical try against South Africa in July, when fellow hooker Pablo Dimcheff travelled 20 metres to score. Despite losing convincingly to South Africa 42-24, it highlights the threat the Italians can pose from mauls.

Away from training, Pollard and his teammates have been exploring Udine, which has basked in winter sunshine this week and is set to continue into Saturday. After the England Test, Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt and captain Harry Wilson were questioned about the team’s fatigue after a long season, something Pollard doesn’t believe is a factor – or an excuse ahead of facing Italy.

“I don’t think we’re fatigued, I think it was just a matter of poor execution at crucial times in the game, so there were a few chances and we just didn’t execute,” Pollard said.

New Wallabies assistant coach John Ulugia has recently taken over the extensive practice of the side’s former ‘scrum doctor’ Mike Cron on the spring tour.

The Wallabies’ solid scrum was a highlight in England and new Wallabies assistant coach John Ulugia has been consulting the side’s former ‘scrum doctor’ Mike Cron, who remains engaged with the team’s set piece from his home in New Zealand.

It was a day to forget for the Wallabies in London.Credit: AP

“I’m daily on the phone to Crono, which is good. It’s something that he’s been hugely supportive of since he joined the Wallabies two years ago, even to now,” Ulugia said.

“So I think he’s always going to be around somewhere. He’s obviously got that much experience that you can’t just let go of somebody like him, although I’m hugely confident in how to make it go forward with the role now.”

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