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MONTPELLIER - Fiji's wholesale redrafted team will be an unknown quantity which may make them dangerous for Australia in Sunday's Rugby World Cup match, Wallabies' fullback Chris Latham warned Friday.
Latham used the example of how Australia's debutant first five-eighths Berrick Barnes was new to Wales last weekend
and got under their guard.
He said the Wallabies need to be on their guard against the Fijians, reshaped with 11 changes to their starting team.
Both teams are unbeaten with maximum points from their two games, but the Australians are looking to crank up their tournament buildup after showing patches of their best in the 32-20 victory over Wales in Cardiff last weekend.
"They are not playing their strongest team and that could be dangerous for us, it's a little bit of the unknown," Latham said Friday.
"I certainly don't want to take anything away from Berrick Barnes' performance (against Wales) but if you look at last week probably the big difference was Berrick was the unknown factor for the Welsh team, so for this week it's all about us."
Latham repeated the general Australian team theme throughout this week of needing to close down Fiji's instinctive running game.
"We need to concentrate on what we need to do and that's definitely making sure that we're clinical in what we're doing with the ball, but more to the point that we're very clinical in our defence.
"If we don't give Fiji a sniff, then obviously they can't do the things that they love to do when they've got the ball and that's the most important thing for us this week."
Fullback Latham, who has bounced back from a knee reconstruction early this year with outstanding performances at the World Cup, said the Wallabies have been working on minimising their mistakes and clamping down on potential turnover ball for the Fijians to counter.
"We have been practising in defence to make sure that we are all singing from the same book and concentrating on our own phase play and if we're not clinical there we turn over a bit of ball and we know how dangerous the Fijians can get," he said.
Latham said he won't veer from his natural attacking game but the Wallabies may have to establish a sturdy platform to build a winning advantage against the Fijians.
"We could find ourselves in trouble against Fiji if we try and change our game too much," said Latham, who has scored four tries in two RWC games.
"We need to go out there and play what we do best and for me to play well I need to play that instinctive game.
"But as a team we need to be structurally good and if that means if the first 10 minutes if things aren't going too well to plan then we might have to take that three points (penalty goal) kick.
"We did that against Japan, and the crowd didn't like it too much, but at the end of the day it got us an 80 point-plus win and the crowd got to see some good flowing rugby after we built into it.
"So if that what it takes as a team to build into a game then that's going to be the way it is."
- AFP
