Stirling Mortlock has slammed his former side's recent performances. Photo / Photosport
Stirling Mortlock has slammed his former side's recent performances. Photo / Photosport
Former Wallabies skipper Stirling Mortlock hasn't held back on his assessment of the current side's preparation for the upcoming World Cup.
Mortlock who was in the stands at Bankwest stadium in Sydney on Saturday as he watched his former side play their last match before the cup, as they ranout winners 34-15 over the 16th ranked team in the world, Samoa.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Mortlock, the 80-test veteran, better known for that intercept try against the All Blacks in the 2003 semifinal and captaining the side at the 2007 edition didn't hold back, said: "I wasn't that impressed with the Samoa Performance."
Stirling Mortlock has slammed his former side's recent performances. Photo / Photosport
"In the first half it was a pretty decent performance but we didn't assert ourselves in the second half. I wasn't impressed with what was in attack we looked very one-dimensional.
"When you do that you're not as polished and likely to chance your arm but certainly most of the test matches this year we've seen the Wallabies attack really throw caution to the wind with ball in hand and use a lot of width and lots of passes. I just found it hard to follow to be frank."
Dwayne Polataivao dives over to score a try after getting away from Adam Ashley-Cooper. Photo / Photosport
Australia have struggled to pile on the points in their recent test matches, only scoring 29 points or more in three of their last 21 tests. However, they showed when they play with flair they can beat anyone on their day, putting the All Blacks away 47-26 in Perth only a month ago.
"That's why I'm a little bit frustrated by the Samoan performance. I expected to see really expansive attack and a different attack to what we've seen to the last few years. I didn't think it was as high-risk high reward as we've seen in Tests before that.
"I'm hoping we get our set-piece right, which we've done in patches, and if we do that I think we can go deep into this tournament again with that attack."
The Wallabies have settled in Odawara, around 90 minutes from Tokyo after a delayed flight due to typhoon Faxai that is hammering the host country at the moment.
With just over a week until they kick off their campaign against Fiji next week, they will have a bit of work to do if Mortlock is correct.
