KEY POINTS:
MONTPELLIER - Australia insist that their traditional Achilles heel will not come back to haunt them at the World Cup in France, which kicks-off on Friday.
The Australians, often renowned for talented backs of the ilk of David Campese, have suffered up front in the past, despite being
the only side to lift the Webb Ellis trophy on two occasions, in 1991 and 1999.
But now they are convinced that they have improved significantly in that area and can begin their campaign from the solid base of a competitive pack, something that was not the case back in 2005 when their scrum took a battering in back-to-back 26-16 losses to France and England.
"It's hard to say if it's that much better but it has certainly significantly improved," said prop Greg Holmes.
"I was on the bench for these French and English tests. It was pretty bad at that point but we worked really hard these last two years."
One man working on those improvements is Welshman Alec Evans, universally known as 'Doctor Scrum'.
He rates the current Wallabies pack as on a par with the best Australian forwards of 1984 and 1999.
"They're right up there," he said. "In some facets they're probably better with their size and physicality.
"The lineout is very strong and the scrum has come good, but they're big athletes who can run the ball as well."
Another coach who has come in and made a big difference is Michael Foley, the former hooker who has 50 Wallaby caps to his name. He was brought into the set-up by head coach John Connolly when he replaced Eddie Jones.
"Anyone could argue that in 2005 we got caught out a little bit, in the fact that we probably hadn't done as much preparation on the scrum as we should have in that particular time. And we saw what happened," said flanker Phil Waugh.
"Since that time, there has been a huge emphasis on improving our scrum and building a solid basis.
"Michael Foley has done an excellent job. He's definitely brought the best out of some players.
"We earned a lot of respect certainly these last six months. Now we actually need to go out and do it.
"Obviously we don't have the reputation yet for being the most dominant pack, but in the line-out, defensive line-out, tackle contest and the scrum, we've made vast improvements."
Srummaging seems to be the main area of improvement that Foley has brought to the side, leaning on his 50 caps of experience.
"Technically we are far better than what we were several years ago. Michael Foley has been very good in (teaching us) how we are scrummaging these days, how we are working together as a unit," said back-row forward George Smith.
"We haven't been a scrum that other teams were worried about in the past and now they tend to see us differently - in a good way.
"Consistency throughout the games is what we need to achieve during the tournament. The pack is fairly confident we can do the job out there."
Australia open their World Cup campaign on September 8 against Japan before also facing Wales, Fiji and Canada in Pool B.
- AFP
