{"id":39757,"date":"2025-09-24T00:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/39757\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:28:07","slug":"all-blacks-v-wallabies-former-captain-phil-kearns-praises-mike-cron-for-changing-australias-fortunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/39757\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks v Wallabies: Former captain Phil Kearns praises Mike Cron for changing Australia\u2019s fortunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking to the Country Sport Breakfast, Kearns, who played 67 tests for the Wallabies, said the team were now reaping the rewards of Cron\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike Cron is the guy who\u2019s probably an unsung hero … because he is a very much behind-the-scenes man,\u201d Kearns said.<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Black coaching staff Mike Cron, Steve Hansen and Gilbert Enoka. Photo \/ Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he\u2019s been able to do with the Australian scrum has been absolutely fantastic and we actually have a scrum now that\u2019s got a solid footing.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys like James Slipper, you know, despite his age, and I don\u2019t mean that disrespectfully, is scrummaging as well as I\u2019ve ever seen him.<\/p>\n

Kearns said the lineout\u2019s been pretty solid too, \u201dso Mike\u2019s had a massive influence”.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Schmidt is a very humble man, but what he\u2019s been able to do to instil that confidence and that belief in the team is something that we haven\u2019t seen for, well, a couple of decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wallabies must avoid defeat on Saturday to ensure they head to Perth with the chance of possibly lifting the Bledisloe Cup again, which they last held in 2003.<\/p>\n

But history is against them. They haven\u2019t beaten the All Blacks in New Zealand since 2001<\/a>, failing to win any of the following 29 away Bledisloe tests.<\/p>\n

On top of that, they\u2019ve lost their last 23 tests against the All Blacks at Eden Park, with 20 of those defeats coming during New Zealand\u2019s 51-match unbeaten run<\/a> at the venue.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Wallabies captain Phil Kearns. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Despite their Auckland struggles, Kearns took a swipe at the All Blacks\u2019 fortress, saying there is \u201cnothing special\u201d about the venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more special for New Zealanders than it is for people who come in from around the world to play rugby or cricket there,\u201d Kearns said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing particularly daunting about it. The grandstands aren\u2019t massive. It doesn\u2019t hold a huge crowd, like it\u2019s not like … Suncorp … or Perth Stadium or the MCG … so it\u2019s got me buggered why it\u2019s so special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The All Blacks and Wallabies will name their squads on Thursday, with a handful of tickets remaining for the clash.<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to the Country Sport Breakfast, Kearns, who played 67 tests for the Wallabies, said the team were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9092,3017,5263,24812,8136,26888,13381,14229,1320,36157,8142,2082,2740,7499,12811,36156,194,31181,1456,111,139,69,10521,8143,21037,13031,17893,36158,213,765,165,36159,34432],"class_list":["post-39757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-against","tag-ahead","tag-all","tag-australias","tag-blacks","tag-bledisloe","tag-captain","tag-changing","tag-coach","tag-cron","tag-eden","tag-for","tag-former","tag-fortunes","tag-hero","tag-kearns","tag-kiwi","tag-labelled","tag-mike","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opening","tag-park","tag-phil","tag-praises","tag-saturdays","tag-scrum","tag-sports","tag-test","tag-their","tag-unsung","tag-wallabies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}