Rugby: Pressure mounts - Wallabies coach Michael Cheika says kids cried after loss to All Blacks

Michael Cheika after the Sydney defeat...despite appearances, it's full steam ahead. Photo / Photosport

Under-fire Wallabies coach Michael Cheika knows "exactly" where he's headed, even if one renowned pundit says he should be heading out the door.

As the pressure mounted following the heavy Sydney defeat, Cheika naturally jumped to his own defence at the team base on Waiheke Island.

"I've always had a plan about what I want to do," he told Australian media.

"Sometimes you get bumps that take you a different course, you lose players, different things happen along the way and you've got to be able to adjust to that.

"But when you know exactly where you're headed, it makes it a little easier to deal with those things because you can stay on track.

"I'll tell you now, there's no one hurting more than me than when I walk down the tunnel and I see my two kids there crying.

"I'm certainly not thinking we don't merit a negative response – of course we do.

"We've had to take a lot of bullets across this time of building a bit more depth. I think we are getting that now. More focus, more concentration, deliver on the nights, and go from there."

Cheika also suggested the public reaction to another looming Bledisloe Cup defeat occurred because "a lot of fans probably didn't want me to get the job in the first place".

Veteran rugby scribe Greg Growden's column calling for the entire Wallabies staff to be sacked has given Saturday night's Eden Park test a more dramatic build-up.

"Cheika's Wallabies are going absolutely nowhere," Growden wrote in his ESPNscrum.com column, describing the lack of skill in the team as making a mockery of their professional status.

The Sydney Morning Herald followed that up by highlighting Cheika's win ratio as "the second-lowest success rate of the professional era, only marginally higher than Ewen McKenzie's (50 per cent)".