Cheika expects defiant effort
MICHAEL Cheika wants his Wallabies players to produce their most courageous performance of the year after former coach Bob Dwyer gave them next to no chance of defeating England this weekend.
Earlier this week, Dwyer suggested there was no part of the Wallabies’ game likely to beat England, saying: “I don’t see where we can exert our superiority over them. I don’t think they’ve got the strength or pace or agility or skill to construct any form of game that would give us a win.”
Those comments were noted by Cheika, who is desperate to defeat rival Eddie Jones to prevent a record sixmatch losing streak to England and finish a disastrous 2018 on a high note.
“We want to make sure we finish the year with putting our best performance in, and our most courageous,” Cheika said.
“I don’t think it has to be perfect at all, but plenty of heart, plenty of courage.
“I know everyone thinks it’s a bit of a lost cause, I’ve seen some our own people from back home saying we’re not up to it, so we want to make sure that we make every Australian who gets up and watches the game go, ‘Those guys put everything they’ve got into this game’, and we’ll see what happens from there.”
Cheika said he was not disappointed about being written off by Dwyer.
“That’s the way it is, people have their opinions and I’ve always respected other people’s opinions,’ Cheika said.
“If they didn’t care about the team, they wouldn’t be saying they want the team to be better.
“No one is giving us much of a chance, and the chance we give ourselves is inside our own circle. And there’s only one way we can show the chance we give ourselves, and that’s by what we do when we step onto the field. Talk is cheap at that point.”
Cheika has previously been left seething by England players attacking his halves at the ruck after they’ve passed the ball, and expects similar this time at Twickenham.
“It’s just something we’ve got to deal with, if we’re better at the ruck, then they won’t be able to have that player there to target those guys,” Cheika said.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, play on, if you can get away with it that’s fair enough.
“I think specifically against us, yeah, they probably think they can get to us if they get to [Kurtley] Beale and [Bernard] Foley and [Nick] Phipps, those types of guys, [Will] Genia, they think they can get us rattled.
“And they’ve had a few wins the last couple of years here so it’s probably working.
“So we’ve got to make sure we get on top of that, and we will.”