Rugby: Wallabies coach Michael Cheika set to roll the dice with Kurtley Beale

Australian rugby, riven by infighting and facing questions over its governance and the leadership of chief executive Bill Pulver, needs the Wallabies to at least get close to the All Blacks in the opening Bledisloe Cup test on Saturday.

A victory would be ideal, clearly, given the state of the game here which is in danger of turning more people into the arms of the ever-present rival football codes.

Coach Michael Cheika deserves plaudits for this week attempting to spread the rugby message in Sydney's western suburbs, traditionally a league stronghold, by training at the impeccably-kept and intimate Pepper Stadium, the home of the Penrith Panthers, but the best way to bolster the Wallabies' support base would be a win against their transtasman rivals.

The Wallabies themselves need it too for their own self-belief as much as anything, something touched on today by inside centre Kurtley Beale, a man who returned from Wasps in London in May with a hamstring strain and who hasn't played since, but one who is likely to start at ANZ Stadium.

"It's important to win back the fans but it's more important for ourselves," he said when asked about the need for a good performance.

"I think as a team if we get the right result at the weekend it will definitely boost the confidence that we need."

The flip side to that, of course, is what another heavy defeat at the hands of the All Blacks in the first Rugby Championship test of the season would do for the Wallabies' confidence.

Last year in this fixture Steve Hansen's men blew the Wallabies off the park 42-8 and retained the Bledisloe Cup a week later in Wellington with a 29-9 victory before sealing the series with a 37-10 win at Eden Park in October.

None of the Wallabies experienced a Super Rugby victory over a New Zealand team this year, and only the Brumbies featured in the playoffs, and they fell at the first hurdle to the Hurricanes in Canberra.

Another one-sided test on Saturday would open up the very real possibility of a thrashing under the roof in Dunedin next weekend.

Morale among the Western Force players in the squad is already low given the franchise has been axed from Super Rugby. Compounding that with a big defeat would be almost cruel.

It's with this at stake that Wallabies coach Michael Cheika looks ready to roll the dice and start Beale, who was ruled out of the team's June domestic internationals: victories over Fiji and Italy and a loss to Scotland, outside No10 Bernard Foley.

Beale has trained with the squad over the past four or five weeks but must be considered a risk due to his lack of recent game time; certainly his defensive capabilities in the midfield will be seen as a potential vulnerability by the All Blacks.

In speaking to the media at ANZ Stadium today, Beale acknowledged it was his first visit to the ground in two years, but the 28-year-old insisted playing in the United Kingdom had helped with his overall game.

"As a player, you want to keep growing and learning and I think my knowledge of the game in different areas, I have a really good understanding.

"There's a lot of set piece dominance in the Northern Hemisphere. They focus a lot on their scrums and lineouts. The backs don't really touch the ball much.

"I was very lucky to play at Wasps where they throw the ball around a bit. Other teams like to squeeze you. Certainly, it created that kind of test match environment feel."