Moore's a whole lot merrier now

2008-08-26 14:12

Durban - If you watched the end of the Durban Test, you would have seen Wallabies hooker Stephen Moore lean forward, drop his head and emit the most enormous sigh of relief.

Fair enough, too, because his South African experience over the past six seasons has been complete torture. Moore had played 10 matches for the Reds and the Wallabies in the Republic, and, until Saturday, there had been no victories.

His run had also included several bad losses - none more so than when the Reds lost their way last year and wound up on the end of a 92-3 thrashing by the Bulls in Pretoria in the final Super 14 round.

"It's not something I'm that happy about, but it's good to break it," Moore said. "It only really dawned on me at the end of the Test. That's why I had goosebumps for the last few minutes of the game, when we realised that we had won it. It was a special feeling."

Moore said a key to Saturday's success in Durban was ignoring the fact that no Wallabies side had succeeded in South Africa since 2000.

Acclimatise

"That's something we avoided talking about this time, and I think it worked," Moore said. "We didn't mention once about how difficult it is to play here. Every other time I've come over here we've said how hard it is, and that not many teams win here. But this time we just focused on our own preparation. Now we are already discussing winning two in a row here. We'll move straight on to that task this week."

The Wallabies have also approached their fortnight in South Africa differently, going out rather than holing up in their hotel. They also went to the All Blacks-Springboks Test in Newlands the previous weekend, which helped them to acclimatise.

Moore said: "We've had a good balance between rugby and the guys getting away from it on their days off. Robbie [Deans] mentioned in the change rooms how happy he was that the boys used their downtime to enjoy the place. A lot of teams who come here look upon it as a chore rather than an experience. We haven't. That's been a big turnaround for us."

- Rugby Heaven