Warning for Wallabies

Cheika declares Aussies need 80-minute effort to beat All Blacks

RUGBY UNION: No time to mope, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has implored his battered troops to show more grit and resilience or surrender the Bledisloe Cup for a 16th year in a row.

Cheika was frustrated by how easily the Wallabies folded after an excellent, though sapping, first-half defensive effort in Saturday night’s 38-13 Rugby Championship opener in Sydney.

The Wallabies leaked six tries in the last 41 minutes as the All Blacks turned the screws like only they can.

Cheika said his side must develop a harder edge to seriously compete with world sport’s most ruthless team in Saturday’s must-win clash at the All Blacks’ Eden Park graveyard.

“All the good work you do can get undone in a very short space of time when you aren’t concentrating on what you want to do, playing your role in the team for 80 minutes,” Cheika said before flying out for Auckland yesterday.

“We need to be playing more of that 80 minutes, be clear on what we’re doing and deliver on that to defeat New Zealand.”

Cheika said Australia’s disastrous setpiece performance, including seven lost lineout throws and a monstered scrum in the absence of injured props Scott Sio and Taniela Tupou, was no excuse for the second-half collapse.

“You can’t sook about it. You’ve got to get on with it,” he said. “It’s a lineout, if you don’t win it, go get the ball some other way. We’ve just got to recover. Forget about that, move on to the next thing.”

Australia have not won at Eden Park since 1986 but Cheika is refusing to raise the white flag.

“The job’s the same. We’ve still got to win two games (to win the series),” he said.

The Wallabies will be without star fullback Israel Folau who has been ruled out with an ankle injury.

His unavailability leaves young guns Jack Maddocks and Tom Banks in line to make their Wallabies starting debut, though Cheika said Kurtley Beale loomed as an option with Matt Toomua a candidate for inside centre.

The Wallabies expect to have Tupou available after the prop was scratched just hours before Saturday night’s showdown with a hamstring injury.