Wallabies wary of ‘rough’ tactics from England

AUSTRALIA expect England to hit them with “rough” tactics in tomorrow’s World Cup quarter-final showdown in Marseille.

Wallabies head coach John Connolly revealed yesterday he had met with the International Rugby Board’s referees’ chief Paddy O’Brien and raised specific concerns about hooker Mark Regan. Connolly fears England will try to unsettle the Wallabies and urged referee Alain Rolland to clamp down on anything underhand.

“England picking Regan at hooker delivers an intent,” he said. “We’ve spoken to Paddy O’Brien to ensure he behaves himself, just to ensure the game’s fair and clean.”

Springboks coach Jake White recently accused Regan of not throwing straight down the middle of the lineout and of stepping into the field of play. That is understood to have been one of the topics raised by Connolly.

After England’s second Test defeat to South Africa in the summer, Springboks hooker John Smit remarked that Regan had “said more to me in two games than my wife has in 10 years”. Regan was also admonished by referee Rolland for overstepping the mark as he celebrated England being awarded a penalty during their defeat to France in Marseille in August.

Australia’s forwards coach Michael Foley is concerned his players do not react to any chat or dirty tactics from the England forwards.

The Wallabies do not want to gift Jonny Wilkinson shots at goal but Foley has warned them what to expect.

Replacement lock Hugh McMeniman said: “Foley has coached some of the boys and he says they’re pretty rough.

“You can expect anything from the English really, definitely off the ball stuff and anything if you are lying on the ground; a bit of the scratch on the eye, but all the boys have coped with that before.

“It’s not going to have any effect on us. I would like to see us play the sort of game we want to play, I get more enjoyment out of that than coming down to fisticuffs on the ground with some blokes.

“There’s a lot of teams in the world that do it to try and get over the top of their opposite player mentally.”

Connolly has included nine of the side beaten by England in the 2003 World Cup final after Stirling Mortlock recovered from a shoulder injury to resume the captaincy.

The World Cup’s leading try-scorer Drew Mitchell, who has scored seven times in four games, is dropped to the bench with Adam Ashley-Cooper starting after edging what Connolly described as a “points decision”.

As expected, rookie fly-half Berrick Barnes will start as Stephen Larkham continues his recovery from knee surgery.