New Zealand opened their Rugby Championship campaign with a thumping win over Australia last week but the world champions are bracing for a tough encounter against a wounded Wallabies side determined to salvage their pride on Saturday.
The All Blacks romped to a 42-8 victory in Sydney to quash any notion of a tricky transitional period following the retirement of several New Zealand greats, with this weekend’s encounter in Wellington seen as another big test for Steve Hansen’s developing side.
“We just need to put ourselves in their shoes and think about what we would be doing and the edge and intensity we would have at training,” All Blacks loose forward Jerome Kaino told New Zealand media yesterday.
“They have had a lot of injuries but even when you look at the guys who didn’t play, they have got a lot of class there. Whoever they put in there is going to have a lot of determination to better their performance,” he added.
“I know if that was us, we would be doing everything possible to play a lot better and get a win and that is what we are expecting.”
Australia must win to retain any hope of winning back the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2003.
Criticised in the past for following up brilliant performances with mediocre ones, Kaino believes the All Blacks have plenty of motivation to put in a performance at Wellington to match last week’s brilliance in Sydney.
“It is all about attitude and mindset,” he said. “We have got the mindset that we haven’t done anything, that we haven’t achieved anything.
“And how we will feel on Saturday if we lost at home to Australia. For us, it is back to square one. We haven’t got the cup.”
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika faces perhaps “the biggest challenge” of his career on Saturday. Last weekend’s loss was Cheika’s fourth consecutive home defeat.
“Probably the biggest. It’s a big stage and it’s a big challenge for us,” Cheika told the Australian Associated Press yesterday when asked about his assessment of the task ahead.
“The criticism from the performance (last weekend) is very warranted, no doubt about that, and when there’s a lot of that talk in your head you start to get weighed down by it.
“(The players) are feeling pretty terrible about it, so we’ve got to get them back up into a situation where that’s driving them to do something better this weekend.”