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Published 21:11 29 May 2018 BST
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“Personally I am not a fan of having David Pocock and Michael Hooper in the same side,” said Wallaby legend Tim Horan on the Fox Rugby podcast.
“Only because we have lacked size in the backrow for a long time when we have the Pocock and Hooper combination. Me personally, I’d put Pocock on the bench with him coming on for impact with about 30 minutes to go.
“I just think we need to get back to two big backrowers – a number eight and number six who can cart the ball over the advantage line, put some hits on, offload some balls. Who they are, there is a mix of players but I think [Cheika]will pick Pocock and Hooper . . . but I think we are getting out muscled there.
“The gameplan, especially when you play on dry rugby pitches in Australia, you want to play open and expansive style and that suits having Hooper and Pocock, but you still need to lay a platform for the backline and that’s by going forward.”
Meanwhile Waratahs attack coach Chris Malone believes that Wallabies full-back Israel Folau should win most of the aerial battles against Ireland if head coach Joe Schmidt and fly-half Johnny Sexton look to target the Australian back three."They [Ireland] will kick to contest a lot, they won't want to give our guys any space," Malone said.
"The big area Australia will be working on, I would imagine, is how they retreat on those kicks. They [Australia] are going to try and find and free up some time in terms of how they then build their attack out of those contested possessions and a lot of that will come down to their ability to get off the ground and work hard.
"I know [Wallabies coach Michael Cheika] will be big on the effort of our team to get back behind the ball in those situations. Particularly with Israel he's the best in the world in the air so if they're going to kick to contest I'll be backing him to win most of those possessions."
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