Deans confident of overcoming injuries

ROBBIE DEANS insists his Wallabies side have the strength in depth to get back to winning ways against Ireland, despite losing another front-liner yesterday.

Veteran lock Nathan Sharpe was hit with a bout of back spasms and so will miss the duel with Donncha O’Callaghan and Mick O’Driscoll at the Suncorp Stadium on Saturday. But Deans, who brought Mark Chisholm into the team in Sharpe’s place, is confident his tight five can cope.

“For sure it’s a big loss. He’s not particularly excited about it either,” said the Australia coach. “If it had been one episode of back spasm it would’ve been okay but we had a recurrence last night.