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Jane praises wing rival Ioane

All Blacks wing Cory Jane praises Digby Ioane.

14 October 2011 09:11 GMT

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Jane praises wing rival Ioane

All Blacks wing Cory Jane has great respect for his Australian rival Digby Ioane.

In the All Blacks' players' last press conference ahead of Sunday's Rugby World Cup semi-final showdown at Eden Park, Jane was asked which wingers had impressed him this tournament.

"There's been some pretty good tries scored. I like Digby for Aussie," Jane said.

"He's only played one or two games this tournament but prior to that he's exciting when he gets the ball, hopefully not too exciting when he plays us."

"The England fellow (Chris Ashton) he scored a lot of tries, Sonny (Bill Williams) at the weekend, he was bumping people off so that was pretty good as well but there's been some exciting play during the World Cup so hopefully over the next couple of weeks that continues," he said.

Jane is not expecting Australia to kick away as much ball as they did against South Africa in the quarter-final last week.

The Australians would play it differently because the All Blacks were a different sort of side, he said.

"Aussies like to use the ball and we like to use the ball so that will be a bit different this weekend," he said.

Meanwhile, hooker Keven Mealamu was expecting plenty of action up front between the forward packs.

"It's been a pretty exciting week for us. You can feel the difference, the intensity has gone up quite a bit," he said.

Injuries had been a factor in the last two weeks but Mealamu felt the steel within the side had been revealed as a consequence.

Captain Richie McCaw was central to that and while he hadn't been able to train fully with the side he did make a big difference when he was out on the field.

"I definitely think he'll be sweet for us come game time and will be good for us to have out there," he said.

Mealamu was also confident the scrum's development would continue, especially with prop Tony Woodcock getting more consistent match play.

"I've seen our scrum grow as the competition has gone on and he's been a real cornerstone for us there and I think our scrum has just got better and it is great to see him back and perfect timing for us," he said.

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