Eales - There's no crisis
November 19, 2001

Former Wallabies captain John Eales brushed off talk of a crisis in Australian rugby on Sunday in the wake of the world champions' defeat to France.

Eales, a guest at Fiji's tour match with the French Barbarians here Sunday, said Australia's second consecutive defeat against northern hemisphere opposition was no evidence of a decline in rugby.

The towering second row, who retired earlier this year as the most successful captain in Australian history, said the gap between rugby in the northern and southern hemispheres had always been
exaggerated.

"To be honest I think there hasn't been much difference between the top sides in the north and the top sides in the south for four or five years now," Eales said.

"England and France on their day have always been able to beat the best sides," he said.

"France went to New Zealand and won a Test series in 1994, which is a pretty impressive achievement," he said.

On Australia's 14-13 defeat to France on Saturday, Eales said he had no doubt Eddie Jones men would bounce back.

"Fundamentally Australia are a strong team, they just lost to the better team on the day. France were extremely impressive, their forwards were fantastic and they really wanted the win.

"But Australia will come back strongly. Great teams lose matches from time to time, but I don't think anyone will be panicking in the Australian camp.

"I think the guys will know that they didn't play as well as they can and they'll set about correcting that," said Eales.

Eales was later pressed into action for Sunday's match, performing a ceremonial kick-off. (Sapa-AFP)

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