New Wallaby head coach Robbie Deans pronounced himself “pretty pleased” with his team’s character-filled 18-12 win over a plucky Irish side in Melbourne at the weekend, but said he will be looking for a “huge improvement” in their next Test.

Deans now has two weeks to work on his team’s shortcoming, before the Wallabies meet France in Brisbane.

Reflecting on Australia’s narrow victory over Ireland, Deans said: “[I'm] happy with the win.

“Obviously it wasn’t flawless and clearly the guys’ legs were heavy at the end, the Irish played well, they asked a lot of us.

“Ireland rocked us. They profited a couple of times pretty easily which put us under pressure but the guys hung in there well. It was never going to be perfect first up.

“I was essentially [I'm] pretty pleased off a short background and [with] some of the character that was shown to close it off. As it was our first game, it was never going to be perfect.

“You’ve got to work hard for Test wins and you don’t get home without earning it. We created pressure, just lacked a little bit of cohesion.”

Speaking about what will be required against the French in a fortnight Deans said he’ll be looking for a big improvement in his team’s second outing.

“We’re clearly going to be better for that outing,” he said.

“There were probably elements the French will look at and probably get pretty excited but we’ll work on those.”

Wallabies captain Stirling Mortlock, commenting on Ireland’s 63 percent possession share, said it had been a tough season opener for Australia.

“We knew we would be rusty, but the effort was there,” said Mortlock after the game.

“We’ve been a little bit scrappy but you can’t take anything away from Ireland. We seem to have little bit of an issue coming out slow after half-time.”

He also was impressed by the team’s debutants – wing Peter Hynes, scrumhalf Luke Burgess and loose forward Dean Mumm, who came on as a replacement during the Test.

“And you have to be happy with our new caps, because they did well. We still have to work on things, including our cohesion in attack, which was indifferent. We can do a lot better.”

The Wallabies returned to Sydney on Sunday, where they will go into camp in Coogee in preparation for the French Test.

Source: rugby365.com

Tags: test-match, Test-Rugby