Brown banishes Wallaby dreams






WYCLIFF Palu has signed on for the 2011 World Cup.

But his fierce rival Western Force backrower Richard Brown isn't allowing himself to look as far ahead as this year's Wallabies campaign.
Brown and Palu have fought a running battle for the jersey throughout the Robbie Deans era but, as pleased as Brown is that his rival will be around next year to continue the contest, Brown realises he has some lost ground to make up just to stay in the race.
Today's clash against the Highlanders in Queenstown will be his first run-on appearance since the opening round, when he dislocated a shoulder against the Brumbies.
"I can't be thinking about the Wallabies yet," Brown said yesterday, his teeth still chattering after he and his teammates jumped into a Queenstown lake as part of their recovery following their captain's run. "Half the season is already gone and I have to put some good performances on the board."


While he and David Pocock were out of action, Matt Hodgson not only shouldered an enormous amount of the backrow load but in doing so complicated what had looked like a very orderly progression from George Smith to Pocock at openside flanker in the Test side.
Certainly Smith believes the waters have been muddied. "I don't think David is a certainty and he won't be thinking that way either," said Smith, who having announced in February he has played his last Test will find out today, when the results of conduction tests on the nerve damage in his right shoulder come in, whether he also has played his last match for the Brumbies.
"We've all seen how Hodgson has performed this year and last," he said. "With David and Richard out for much of the season, everyone has a new appreciation of how good Hodgson really is. He has really matured."
The Force secured its first win of the season last weekend with an after-the-siren David Hill drop goal against the Stormers but has been relegated nonetheless to a spoiler role for the remainder of the Super 14. Still, according to Brown, it is a role the Force has embraced with zeal.
"Nathan Sharpe has been very good as captain at keeping everyone's head up and we're going to make all of our opponents earn everything they get," he said.
The Highlanders are also out of play-offs contention.




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