Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie is calling Wales’ bluff, saying the Six Nations champions are ”worried” about falling to their ninth straight loss to Australia in Cardiff this weekend.
The Wallabies coach believes some of the confident talk from the Welsh camp this week pointed to an underlying insecurity about losing another nail-biter to their southern hemisphere rivals.
“Every time they’ve had a close loss they’ve probably said, ‘it’s time to end it’,” McKenzie said. “Well, that might be their attitude but we’re quite happy to have the psychological edge there, because if they weren’t worried about it they wouldn’t be talking about it so much.”
“It’s obviously front of mind for them, so if we can keep our foot on their throat then that’s good for us. We’re not keen to just hand it over, we’ll have to make them fight for it.”
The Wallabies will have some of their big guns back for their final spring tour Test. Adam Ashley-Cooper and Nick Cummins return to the starting line-up, and Benn Robinson, Tatafu Polota-Nau to the bench, after all four served one-match suspensions for a big night out in Dublin.
Ashley-Cooper will come off the wing to replace the suspended Tevita Kuridrani at No.13, while Christian Leali’ifano moves back to his preferred position of No.12 after playing outside Mike Harris last week.
Joe Tomane starts in the wing spot vacated by Ashley-Cooper, leaving two-try rookie Chris Feauai-Sautia the unlucky casualty of the match-day 23, and Harris on the bench alongside Nic White and Bernard Foley.
The starting pack remains intact for another week, but McKenzie has made a big tactical change in anticipation of attacking Wales off their lineout.
Dave Dennis and Kane Douglas have been moved onto the bench at the expense of strong scrummager Sitaleki Timani.
McKenzie said the Wallabies wanted to exploit an area that had been working well for them on tour. “The source of innovative play comes from lineouts … We’ve been going quite well on the lineout in attack and defence, so it’s an area where we think there’s some strategic opportunity. Whatever pressure there is that we can generate, the ball goes into touch, we want to be able to play from the lineout, and they like to, too, so if we can deny them opportunity that changes the nature of the game.”
Coach Warren Gatland said on Tuesday Wales were taking an unprecedented focus into this weekend’s Test after treating the northern autumn internationals as “friendlies” in previous years.
The Six Nations champions have never beaten South Africa or New Zealand in the professional era. Their last triumph against Australia was in 2008. McKenzie said it was interesting Gatland had changed his focus this year.
“In terms of the [stronger] southern hemisphere teams, they haven’t got a track record, so maybe they have decided this year it’s time to actually go out and beat those teams,” McKenzie said.
“I don’t know why they weren’t deciding that last year or the year before. Gatland has been at it since 2008, so there’s been plenty of time to make that decision. But, anyway, we’ll get on with it.”