The Wallabies may be cautiously optimistic heading into the World Cup, after a morale-boosting win over the All Blacks in Brisbane. But Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill has taken a thinly-veiled jab at the All Blacks, claiming he would rather enter the tournament on the back of two winsthan consecutive losses.
The All Blacks couldn't topple the Wallabies at Suncorp Stadium, losing the match 25-20 and the Tri-Nations trophy in the process. The victory for Australia built on a tightly-contested win against the Springboks in Durban.
O'Neill accepts the tournament hosts are still favourites to break their 24-year World Cup drought, but warned that the Wallabies' latest win could be a "significant" result.
"It was a great Test match, and clearly a great result. The timing was perfect, it gave us momentum going into the World Cup in 10 or 11 days time," he told Sportal.
"When it was 20-all with 20 minutes to go, they're the sort of games we may have lost in the past, but we won and there was a lot of character and composure in that result."
He said the back-to-back victories demonstrates the faith placed in the coach and players is starting to come good.
"Tournament rugby... is in some ways very different but to win a Test match like that against the best in the world, it had all the tournament-style rugby aspects attached to it, and our blokes didn't flinch."
O'Neill stopped short of describing the results as a "key indicator".
"Well look, I'd rather have that momentum than not have it."
The ARU boss should tread carefully with his comments. In 2007 he infamously claimed that all Australian sports fans "hate England" - England players admitted at the time they used those words as motivation ahead of their 12-10 quarter-final upset win.
When questioned whether anything less than a World Cup title would be considered a failure, O'Neill replied: "That's why you go into these competitions, the bookmakers price these things pretty accurately and the All Blacks are still favourites, we're second favourites."
"I don't mind being the second favourite, it's not a bad position to be in, but thrown in England, France, South Africa, and throw in Samoa - we were only beaten by them a few of weeks ago."
