After falling to a disastrous defeat in front of almost 84,000 fans at the MCG last weekend, the wounded Wallabies believe they can turn it around against a “beatable” All Blacks outfit.
Australia, who lost star props Allan Alaalatoa and Taniela Tupou to injuries at the ‘G, couldn’t convert pressure into points as they succumbed to a 38-7 defeat.
It was the Wallabies’ third defeat in as many Tests under legendary coach Eddie Jones. They risk falling to an 0-4 record if they fail to beat the in-form All Blacks in Dunedin on Saturday.
Rugby fans and even bookmakers may have cast the Wallabies aside to practically near-impossible odds of a win, but the men in gold “believe” even if others don’t.
“We believe they’re beatable,” Wallaby Samu Kerevi told reporters. “They’re a class side and a great team but we believe in our gameplan, we believe in the squad and the talent that we have.
“We’ll go out there and put our best foot forward.
“Any team on any day can be beaten, we saw that at the last World Cup and even leading up to all these Test matches. We’ll just have to play our best game.
“You can’t let too much pressure off on a team like that and last week we just couldn’t do that well enough.”
The Wallabies started their new era under coach Jones with a disastrous defeat at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria last month, before returning home to face Argentina at Sydney’s CommBank Stadium.
But, at least on the scoreboard, that wasn’t a successful outing either.
Playing against Los Pumas, who were coached by former Wallabies boss Michael Cheika, Australia shot out of the blocks with an early try to Len Ikitau.
But the star centre left the field shortly after with an injury – a blow that has ruled Ikitau out of both Bledisloe Cup Tests. The Wallabies failed to fill the void that Ikitau left – going on to lose a thriller.
Australia fell to another defeat in their third and final Rugby Championship fixture, with the All Blacks overcoming a valiant performance the Wallabies.
But let the record show, as things stand, the Wallabies are 0-3 under coach Jones.
“After a few losses like that the team gets a bit hurt and gets a bit down but Eddie’s been so great in that space,” Kerevi added. “We understand it’s unacceptable to get those results.
“The way he’s come hard on us in terms of our own standards, building habits, and we can only do that through training. He’s been hard on us at training and it’s not just him, it’s more the squad and us being hard on each other.
“The byproduct of that will just be the results on the weekend.
“We play class sides every week, especially in this Rugby Championship. We’ve got Argentina, South Africa and the All Blacks of course. It’s always going to be a tough match for us but we’re looking forward to that and those challenges ahead.”
The All Blacks clash with the Wallabies at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium kicks off at 2.35 pm (NZST) on Saturday afternoon.
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