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Moore relieved to end winless drought

Tuesday 26th August 2008

Broken hoodoo: Moore happy his ten-game losing streak is finally over

Australia hooker Stephen Moore has revealed he broke his own personal South African hoodoo in the drought-breaking 27-15 win over the Springboks last Saturday.

Moore told his team-mates after the Wallabies' win that he'd never tasted victory at any level in the Republic, dating back to his Super 14 debut in Pretoria in 2003.

"It must be about ten (games)," Moore told AAP.

"Between the Reds and the Wallabies, that's my first win over here.

"I suppose it's not something that I'm that happy about, but it's good to break it."

Moore had played in three Tests in South Africa before Saturday's victory - in Johannesburg and Pretoria in 2005 and in Cape Town last year.

More infamously, he was part of last year's catastrophic 92-3 loss by the Reds to the eventual Super 14 champion Bulls at Loftus Versfeld.

But even with all the talk of Wallabies hoodoos, the consistent number two said his achievement hadn't hit him until late in Saturday's match.

"I've had a couple of draws over here but never a win so I just sort of had goose bumps there for the last few minutes of the game when we realised that we'd won it," said Moore.

Moore believes the key to the win, which broke an eight-year run of losses in the country for Australia, was coach Robbie Deans encouraging the players to embrace the African experience.

"I know every other time I've come over we've said how hard it is to play here and how not many teams win here," he said.

"We never mentioned that at all this week, we just focused on our own preparation and I think that was a pretty big factor in getting a result.

"We sort of had balance between our training and the guys getting away from rugby as well on their days off.

"Robbie mentioned it in the change rooms that he was really happy how the boys used their downtime throughout the week to get out there and enjoy the place and really use it as a tour as opposed to a chore, which I think a lot of teams that come here sort of think."

Now that the gorilla's off their back, the Wallabies will tackle a 45-year winless record at Johannesburg's Ellis Park cauldron this Saturday with renewed confidence.

"I think once you get over that thing of playing in South Africa and now the guys have felt what it's like to win here, then I think that could be pretty important for the group," Moore said.

"We'll start hopefully by winning again this week.

"We've already discussed that straight away in the change rooms."

It's a task he hopes isn't made more difficult by the same X-factor that spurred the Boks to a 33-20 win over the Wallabies in 2005.

"The last time I played a Test there was when Mandela was there so that was an amazing experience," he said.

"They played out of their skin that day.

"I remember going up the long race there, he was sitting in a golf cart. The whole team was around the cart and half of them were crying."