0
Gotta admit Gits, I thought you were pretty ordinary against a weak opposition too
Full marks for fronting up to it though
Look out Wales!
Coach won't let go
Comment by By Matt Giteau
September 15, 2007
JOHN Connolly has been sledging me all week. One lousy half against Japan in Lyon, where I would not have caught a cold in Siberia, and the coach has gone to town.
"Hey Gits, you must be fresh, did you even play that opening game?"
What a comedian. Even worse, he laughs the loudest, and brings the other boys in on his game.
"Has anybody seen Matt Giteau? I'm still waiting for him to turn up."
The name Edward Scissorhands has been thrown at me too. But what can you do?
My handling in that first 40 minutes in our opening match of the World Cup was diabolical. We made five errors as a team and three of them went against my name.
It was hardly the start I wanted, especially after writing last week how this World Cup, more than any other, was the one where I'm likely to roll out my best form.
The aim now is simple. I want to turn things around in Cardiff tonight. I'm not sure what went wrong against Japan. On my first run, I got outside my opposition pretty easy before getting ankle-tapped.
Maybe it gave me a false sense of security that I could get around them at will. I was looking for holes, not keeping my eye on the ball and, well, you know the rest.
My concentration was back in the second half and I played my normal game, rather than trying to force things and score off every phase. Patience was needed and I forgot that in the first half.
But I won't forget how badly I played. No one played poorly last week. No one except for me, and that has spurred me on at training this week. It always does if you're coming off the back of a disappointing game.
You want to play well the next chance you get and, for me, that's Wales at Millennium Stadium.
This is a massive match for us. It's the game we've targeted since the end of the Tri-Nations series. All our planning has gone into beating the Welsh on their home turf and I want to play my part.
Plenty of people have written off Wales after they struggled to down Canada. But you just don't know if the Welsh, with one eye on us, were up there mentally to take on the Canadians who really took it to them early.
The fact that Wales did come back well, finish with a five-try flurry and win quite comfortably in the end, shows they are a threat if we let them into the game.
At the same time, we have been keeping a bit in reserve for this trip to Cardiff. All the tricks we've got, everything we've been saving, it will all go on the table tonight.
We do have moves we've prepared for the Welsh but refused to unveil before the World Cup, so as not to alert them to what we're doing.
It's difficult to say any more than that without letting the cat out of the bag.
But we have analysed where we think we can get through the Welsh defence and the result, hopefully, will be line breaks, tries and a victory that should guarantee us top spot in Pool B.
Still, you never like to get ahead of yourself. I fell into that trap against Japan and look what happened. I'm still paying for it.
After a week to think about what went wrong, it's time for me to get back on track - if only so Knuckles will finally shut up.
Reply With Quote
