Wilson lashes out at Borthwick's claims
SPOTLIGHT: Australia captain Harry Wilson has rejected claims that the Wallabies use illegal and dangerous breakdown tactics as they prepare to face England on Saturday.
A report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph said England coach Steve Borthwick highlighted Australia’s alleged ploy of deliberately entering rucks from the side during the customary pre-match meeting with referee Nika Amashukeli.
Player welfare concerns were also raised over Australia’s approach to clearouts.
“Firstly, I’d like to question how many are illegal,” loose forward Wilson told reporters on Friday.
“And to say that they are dangerous, they are definitely not
“There’s no way [Australia head coach] Joe Schmidt would coach a team to be illegal at the breakdown.
“I think we’ve had over 2,000 rucks this year, and for them [England] to cherry-pick a couple is quite amusing.
“When a team is playing 10 or 11 Tests, any team would have some from the side.
“We think we are quite good at our attacking breakdown.
“We are pretty excited for the opportunity to go out there and have a fair game.”
Australia will be missing James O’Connor, Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper at Twickenham as their English clubs will not release them for a match that falls outside World Rugby’s designated international window.
A separate agreement with the English Rugby Football Union means the country’s elite clubs have to release England players.
Australia upset the odds to beat England 42-37 at Twickenham last year, thanks to Max Jorgensen’s last-gasp try and pushed the British and Irish Lions close in a 2-1 series loss.
Australia also won at world champions South Africa’s Ellis Park fortress in Johannesburg for the first time in 62 years during the recent Rugby Championship.
“There haven’t been many games since I’ve been captain where we have been the favourites,” said Wilson.
“We are always the outsiders, and not many people back us. As a group, we enjoy that.”
Wilson, who will lead a much-changed team following last week’s narrow win over Japan in Tokyo, added: “We’re so internally focused on improving and making sure preparation is right so that we believe in ourselves and believe in each other to do the job.
“Last year, this game was a big turning point for us as a group, which really made us believe that on the day we can beat anybody in the world.”
