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New faces will adapt

New faces will adapt

09/03/2010 07:04:21 PM

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Nathan Sharpe is expecting the new faces in the Australia team to have no trouble adapting to the big stage in Saturday's (South African time) Tri Nations encounter against South Africa in Bloemfontein.

The veteran lock is preparing to win his 87th Test cap for his country and will have plenty of unfamiliar faces around him at Vodacom Park after Robbie Deans drafted in Stephen Moore, Mark Chisholm and Ben McCalman following last week's 44-31 loss in Pretoria.

The trio were named ahead of Saia Fainga, Dean Mumm and Richard Brown when the Wallabies coach named his team earlier this week, while the back-line remained unchanged.

Sharpe, who was an injury doubt after hurting his ankle in the last game, has recovered to take his place and will line up alongside Chisholm as the lock pair.

He said: "They've been in the Tri Nations squad from the outset so you'd expect them to have a fairly good understanding of what's going on."

The 32-year-old also denied there were any issues in the line-outs - an area of their game the Australians seemed to struggle with last week.

Even Deans raised the issue after the game, but Sharpe continued: "If you look at the game, there really was no issue previous to the last few minutes.

"The South Africans made a big fuss about it afterwards, so it made it appear there was a problem, but we did not see it that way.

"It was just a few small mistakes at the end. We did not view it as a major problem and we feel we are definitely on the right track in the line-outs."

The match is of little significance to the outcome of the competition, New Zealand having already clinched the title two weeks ago.

But there is still second place as well as the Nelson Mandela Shield at stake with the two sides sharing their two meetings this season.

However, the visitors will be trying to end a terrible run playing at altitude in South Africa, where they have not won a Test for almost 50 years - their last win came in 1963.

Sharpe said that last week's result was one that got away, but they were determined to end the tour on a high.

He added: "We've probably had a couple of those this year and they're very hard lessons to learn."

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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