Australia looking to cure Pool of Death hangover

After admitting they carried a hangover from the Rugby World Cup ‘‘Pool of Death’’ into the knockout stages, the Wallabies are determined to cut all ties with their near-terminal slip-up against Scotland.

Australia escaped with a controversial one-point victory over Scotland to sneak into the semifinals, where they face a vastly improved Argentina at Twickenham

Some might argue that they are already there. They were third at the 2007 World Cup and on that occasion beat Ireland, Scotland and France twice. This team has an added dimension, though, as Ireland found out in such humbling fashion. The forwards still pack a punch, but the willingness to run and play a wide game has made them everybody’s darlings.

They will be wary of Australia after losing 34-9 in the Rugby Championship, but have since beaten South Africa in Durban on Monday (NZ time). But there’s no danger of any memories of the fortunate escape sneaking into camp this week – even if it is seemingly hard to avoid and has dominated back pages since the 35-34 victory.

‘‘Its irrelevant. We are still here,’’ explains feisty halfback Will Genia.

‘‘We won the game, we’re still here, we have another week to prepare. People can say what they and then unsettled the All Blacks in the World Cup pool stage.

There is also the delicious irony in Australia sorting out their scrum by looking to an Argentinean scrum doctor, while the Pumas locate a distinctly Antipodean flair manual. Intriguingly, given England’s latest review, Ayerza said multinational approaches work and he is glad Mario Ledesma is spreading the gospel in Australia. ‘‘They’ve had a big change of mindset with the introduction of Mario Ledesma,’’ want, we are just concentrating on Argentina.’’

Cheika had admitted the Wallabies were guilty of hanging onto their impressive pool wins over England and Wales, rather than switching focus to the all-important quarterfinal against Scotland.

After using up their get-out-of-jail card, he took responsibility for the lapse and said he wouldn’t let it happen again. he said. ‘‘He’s tried to change the approach to the scrum so that instead of it being a platform to put the ball in play, it has become a platform of psychological domination. You can see how well that has gone. They dominated England.

‘‘As a front row, that’s the best you can aim for – not teams just wanting to neutralise the scrum or get away with those 50-50 calls. Come to play the scrum; don’t come to get away with it.’’

Ayerza spoke of finding

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