Emotions spill over as Australia return to training

Australia have made a fiery return to training following Saturday’s painful 22-16 loss to New Zealand in Auckland, with front-rowers Stephen Moore and Ben Alexander involved in a scuffle.

Today’s two-and-a-half-hour session at Brookvale Oval threatened to erupt when the Brumbies duo became entangled on the ground after crossing paths in a competitive training drill.

After some good old-fashioned push and shove the pair separated themselves without exchanging pleasantries.

The incident reflected the mood within the Wallabies camp after another near miss against the Kiwis.

Star flyhalf Matt Giteau said of the heated exchange: “It’s good isn’t it, luckily I was nowhere to be seen I was on the wing.”

“I think that’s good, it shows the fire’s still there and training intensity’s right up so I think it’s a good thing.”

Injured back-rower Richard Brown, who had a front-row seat when the incident occurred, also played down the scrap.

“Anyone under fatigue gets a bit grumpy, I wouldn’t want to be pushing ’Moorey’ around so I’ll leave it up to them,” he said.

“I think a bit of that can be healthy...I see no problem with that.”

Meanwhile, Brown is confident he’ll be fully fit in time for Australia’s next Tri-Nations encounter against South Africa in Cape Town on July 8.

The versatile back-rower was forced from the field with what he first feared was a broken right ankle midway through the second half of Saturday’s loss.

But he now expects to be back in full training early next week.

“The first thoughts were it was going to be pretty bad but all the x-rays and MRI scans (revealed) it was just a few bruised joints in my foot,” a relieved Brown said.

Brown conceded the entire squad was still coming to terms with their first loss of the season which saw them surrender another half-time lead against the Kiwis.

“Everyone was pretty blue, pretty glum over the weekend, it’s not something that I certainly didn’t swallow easily, but I think hopefully we can use that disappointment to our advantage,” he said.

Coach Robbie Deans addressed the players this morning.

Asked what was said the straight-shooting Brown revealed: “We spoke about (the fact) that pretty much we played average and we still could have won, so that’s the potential that we have.”

“It obvious the end of our second half was where we let ourselves down, there’s no rocket science to the few problems that we can address and that’s in our favour, we know what they are there’s no big secrets so we should be able to address it.”