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THE bloodied faces of forwards Stephen Moore, Matt Hodgson and Richard Brown told the story yesterday as the Wallabies showed more aggression against one another than they had against opponents all season.
With Australia's 35-man squad for the Grand Slam tour to be named today, the much-maligned Wallabies tore into each other during a ferocious internal trial match watched by 3000 fascinated onlookers at Riverview College.
Frustrated coach Robbie Deans had called for his men to show more commitment and pride following a disastrous Tri-Nations campaign.
And the Wallabies players responded with a bruising showdown.
Hooker Hodgson said the nasty cut above his eye had come from catching an elbow or shoulder in a hit-up early in the game.
But the Western Force warrior said he had loved every minute of the brutal trench warfare between two evenly matched sides.
"It was good fun, both teams took it as a full-on game. With everyone trying to get on the plane, it was all guns blazing," he said.
While the two sides were dubbed the Wombats and the Possums, it was anything but soft and cuddly out in the middle as friendships were put aside for 80 minutes.
"It was an 'our team versus their team' mentality," Hodgson said.
No one in the crowd was more delighted to see the players belting into each other than Deans, who is priming his squad for a demanding campaign with Tests against the All Blacks in Tokyo, plus England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
"It was a great trial, just what we needed," Deans said.
"We lack rugby and our opposition are playing week to week.
"(The players) have worked together and they have competed against each other, which tends to build bonds and those bonds are going to be important to us."
Deans said the intensity he had been looking for was evident on the field yesterday.
"We are working on that as a group collectively. We have some ideas we are going to work on to hopefully take that last step."
Inside back Berrick Barnes described yesterday's trial as a solid hit-out and a good way to "blow off a few cobwebs".
"We are all mates but we were ripping into each other pretty heavily," he said.
"That shows that guys want an opportunity in this 35-man squad.
"Today everyone stood up and it was good to see."
Barnes said his Wombats side had spent a fair while camped on their own line during the game. "It felt like our team was defending 10 sets of six in rugby league," he said.
Barnes was one of the standouts yesterday as he switched between five-eighth and inside centre with Matt Giteau.
"Me and Gitty are working with a few things at the moment and trying to sort out combinations - who is where, what works best for both players," Barnes said.
"We will keep tinkering with those things in the next couple of weeks and hopefully we can get some fluency back in our game."
Deans said he and his selectors would be poring over the footage of the trial before finalising the Grand Slam squad. "There were some blokes we hadn't seen before who did some good things," he said.
For the record, the Wombats beat the Possums seven tries to two.
* THE Wallabies will play one Tri-Nations game in Sydney next season, against the All Blacks at ANZ Stadium on September 11.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/spo...-1225784296172
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