Macqueen admits there's work to be done
June 10, 2001

Australia coach Rod Macqueen was in a guarded mood after the Wallabies warmed up for this summer's Test series against the Lions with a 41-29 win over the New Zealand Maori at the Sydney Football Stadium.

The world champions scored five tries to two but were never able to dominate or subdue their spirited opponents.

The Wallabies led 21-16 at the break and 31-19 on the hour, but the Maori team came within a whisker of an upset win late in the game when they trailed 31-29.

"We go in now to our break before we get into the Lions knowing that we've got a lot of work to do, but at least we've got a fair idea now of some of the areas we've got to do it," Macqueen told the ARU's website.

"But certainly I thought the positives outweighed the negatives and it's a good lead up for us.

"We made a lot of good line breaks. It was good to see the combination start to work together well so early.

"Some of the bench players performed very well when they came on and our units, scrum and lineout, performed reasonably well.

"However, we lost a bit of composure at times when we made our line breaks and didn't go on with it and gave them back the ball and consequently we let them back in the game lots of times and they performed very well.

"They went wide whenever they took possession and we struggled in that department.

"We also had a bit of trouble with our defensive pattern from time to time, but again that all comes back to combinations and we haven't worked together for very long."

The Wallabies suffered no major injuries although Stephen Larkham, Daniel Herbert and Jeremy Paul took knocks.

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