Michael Cheika: 'I know we'll improve'

Israel Folau of the Wallabies. Photo / Getty

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika is backing his side to turn their game around before the second Bledisloe Cup test in Dunedin next week.

Whether the Australians can put their woeful first-half performance behind them in Sydney remains to be seen, but Cheika said he was unlikely to make too many changes despite the 54-34 scoreline, saying his players had to instead back themselves on defence. They need a victory in Dunedin in order to have any chance of taking back the Cup for the first time since 2002.

While they improved significantly in the second half, the Wallabies appeared to be revolving doors in the first 40 minutes as the All Blacks cut them open almost at will, with fullback Damian McKenzie, wings Rieko Ioane and Ben Smith and midfielder Ryan Crotty making big inroads.

The home side missed 30 tackles in total and made 98. The All Blacks missed 25 - the vast majority in the second half - and made 135.

"It was pretty plain to see our defence wasn't good enough at all," Cheika said. "The adherence to the way we wanted to defend plus the tackling has to be better. That first part of the game is not the level we should be at. Not in any game.

"It's not attitude. It's maybe that little bit of doubt creeps in when something goes against you early.

"We're not up to the standard we need to be at defensively."

Cheika believes his attacking weapons - in particular fullback Israel Folau, midfielder Kurtley Beale and wing Henry Speight - are good enough to score points against any team.

"With the team we've got the points should be coming," he said. "We've got an attacking type of team so we should be scoring points but you've got to have both sides of the game.

"We know what we need to do to rectify that this week - both mentally and on the training paddock."

Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper said: "It was fast paced like we expected. That first 10 minutes when we were attacking - we had some heat on them, but mistakes and our defence wasn't up to scratch. There was a bit of an unravelling there and we were able to get back in it with some really good fight.

"We started to click and we forced them into some errors. We were able to maintain our momentum which is really pleasing which shows we can put any team under a lot of pressure."

At 40-6 down at halftime in front of a crowd of 54,000 at the 80,000-capacity stadium, the Wallabies were staring down the barrel of a humiliation, but their second-half response, including four unanswered tries, will give them hope at least before the return match under the roof in Dunedin.

"I know we'll improve and we've got to do some quick improving before the next game to keep the series alive," Cheika said.

"I don't think there's going to be a lot of changes. The change has to come from us believing we can make the hits... making sure we're coming up on defence and backing ourselves."