Wallaroos looking to continue momentum as execution issues linger

The Wallaroos are hoping to harness their winning momentum as they prepare for the quarter-finals, with improving an alarming execution rate inside the 22 still their main priority.Jay Tregonning's side built back-to-back wins for the first time in 2022 as they held on for a 13-7 win over Wales.It was their second tight victory in a row, forced to defend with 13 players to hold off Scotland 14-12 last week.They now must conquer a team with a sizeably larger winning streak of 28 games in world number one England, however, assistant coach Scott Fava remains proud of the growth the side has shown since the opening game.“Having that won over Scotland really broke the shackles,” Fava told Rugby.com.au.“They’ve been able to sit there and go ‘we can do this and go to the next level’ and we saw that in their behaviours on the field and execution we needed from a defensive point of view.“Winning is part of the way you build momentum at a World Cup. Making sure we won against Scotland enabled us to be in this position against Wales…it would’ve been difficult had we not got it done going into that Wales came without a win. Not saying we couldn’t have done it but momentum is a massive factor.“The girls really toughed it out and showed that resilience that we wanted them to have during the week. It’s not ideal (being down to 14) and we know going into finals football we can’t be having girls off the field…once again, we know what to do now after the third game because we’ve done it every game. "It’s almost like the girls now have the understanding if a yellow card happens, what we need to go into in terms of game plans and how much we need to protect each other.“When you look at the d-line, they just moved, were lateral and they just made sure to shut down the Wales attack at all cost. They were still able to get turnovers and from there, we were able to build momentum and get those three points that were crucial to that position in the game.”Whilst the fight was impressive, the Wallaroos will be disappointed by a wasteful performance inside the opposition's 22.After Iliseva Batisbasaga's early show-and-go, the Australians failed to come away with points from their next 12 entries, half of which ended in turnovers.Whilst one play ended with the referee getting in the way of a 5-on-2 overlap and a certain try, it reflects a concerning trend within the squad, ending the Scotland match with a conversion rate of just 2/10, seven of the eight failed entries ending via a turnover.“The difficulty is we’ve been really working on our in-22 conversion rate. It’s something that we’ve put some time into this week and I think there are a few areas we need to work on,” Fava conceded.“It’s just a disconnection between our drivers and when they want the ball and how the ball is executed to our outside backs.“Everything is in place, all the knowledge and clarity is there it’s just about fixing up the communication and I think we’ll get that job done.”Despite this, the coaching staff were proud of the leadership shown across the group to bounce back from their opening game defeat to New Zealand and ensure their spot in the knock-out stages.“We’ve got a really good leadership group in general," Tregonning added. "You’ve got Shannon [Parry] that obviously starts the game, Ili [Batibasaga] at half, finishes off with Emily [Chancellor] leading the team when comes off and she’s part of the leadership group as well and we have got Georgina [Friedrichs] and Michaela [Leonard] as part of that group too. "The six of them work really well together. And saying that, obviously we’ve got leaders all across the field; Grace [Hamilton] deservedly won player of the match in my eyes today as well with her carries and how she leads from the front.”Click Here: Inter soccer tracksuit