Wallabies centre Berrick Barnes says his defence got a league style workout as South Africa's big forwards targeted Australia's small men in Saturday night's Tri-Nations victory at Subiaco Oval.
Former Brisbane Bronco Barnes, who also landed a 79th minute drop goal, has been mentioned as a potential weaklink in Australia's midfield defence because of his relatively small size but showed no signs of that against South Africa.
"It was almost back in the league days, you stand the big forwards out wide and run them at the small blokes," Barnes said yesterday. "We knew it was coming. You have [Springboks No 8 Pierre] Spies, you have [flanker Juan] Smith, you have [flanker Schalk] Burger and then they bring more people off the bench so it never stops.
"Gits [Matt Giteau] deserves a lot of credit too, he was pretty outstanding last night."
And Barnes is expecting to feel the brunt of more traffic from the All Blacks next Saturday, including powerful inside centre Ma'a Nonu.
Barnes and Giteau are a playmaking work in progress for Robbie Deans' Wallabies, but showed plenty of enterprise using the ball against the Boks.
"We were trying to be a bit more patient this week I suppose and at times there obviously we forced the pass just a little bit," Barnes said.
"We were creating line breaks and we were making dents and that's a positive sign so we know the scope for improvement's massive."
Rugby's experimental laws are also helping by speeding up the game, he said.
"There's no stopping."
Barnes' drop goal brought sighs of relief after a tense final 10 minutes.
"It's good to see the practice every now and then comes to fruition," he said.
"I hadn't been hitting them too well in the warm-up, I think I shanked about four or five of them and obviously the first [attempt in the first half] wasn't too flash either.
"I suppose if you hit enough, one's eventually going to go through the sticks."
