Watch every second of the 2027 Rugby World Cup live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe prop knows better than most what it takes to succeed at World Cups, holding the most caps for an Australian at the hallmark event.<\/p>\n
He remains confident they can compete with the best after a tough end-of-season tour if they sort out some key areas.<\/p>\n
“I think in terms of our year that we’ve had this year, there were some really good aspects to the way we played the game\u2026 I just thought as the year went on, we probably fell away, whether that’s through fatigue or injury,” he told the media.<\/p>\n
“I think the biggest thing would be around the discipline and defence.I thought our set-piece was pretty strong, but our lineout really struggled towards the end of the year. <\/p>\n
“All those areas of the game that are your nuts and bolts, like the base of your game, need to be really strong in a World Cup. That’s probably something that the set-piece, defence and discipline sit in.”<\/p>\n
Slipper was part of the ceremony to decide the draw and could feel the energy of the event as it prepares to come to Australia.<\/p>\n
Just don’t expect it to change his mind about his Test future.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think so. I was really happy with my decision to finish up this year. I’ve played enough games and I’ve been to four World Cups,” Slipper said.<\/p>\n
“It’s really exciting. The World Cup itself is so big, but to be at home as well is going to be even bigger. I’m excited.”<\/p>\n
The prop will still feature for the ACT Brumbies during Super Rugby Pacific next year, preparing to return to pre-season next week.<\/p>\n
“Since I retired in Perth, I’ve really enjoyed my time at home. I’ve spent 16 years with the Wallabies, and that’s a lot of time living out of a suitcase so I’ve really enjoyed being at home,” he added.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got two young kids, but it hasn’t been a clean break from rugby. I know deep down that I’m going back to Super Rugby, I’m going back to the Brumbies.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t really detached from the game as such, but I’ve really enjoyed the fact that I’ve stopped playing internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freshly into international retirement, Wallabies legend James Slipper is confident his former teammates have what it takes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,2500],"class_list":{"0":"post-328739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-wallabies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}