Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has urged his side to show mental fortitude in their tour of South Africa in the Rugby Championship.
The Wallabies play the Springboks next weekend in Bloemfontein, a venue they have happy memories of. It is the ground where they last beat the Springboks, 31-29 back in 2007 courtesy of a last-gasp Kurtley Beale drop-goal.
But in general, the Southern tip of Africa is not a happy hunting ground for the Wallabies who have a 23 percent win record from 44 games played there.
There are also the mitigating factors of the altitude and jet-lag. But these are factors Cheika believes are more in the head than anything else.
Speaking at Sydney Airport before the team’s 14-hour flight to Johannesburg, Cheika said his players needed to believe they could do something not many Australian sides have done before.
“I just think it might be in our head,” Cheika told the Canberra Times. “You’ve just got to go there and do your best.
“It’s been a while since we’ve won there and, to be honest, we haven’t accumulated a whole lot of wins over there full stop. If we want to take stepping stones to be a better team, we’ve got to be able to be mentally strong enough.
“Last year we started the game really well in Pretoria. We were leading and I don’t know why we fell off.”
Asked what is needed to win in South Africa, Cheika replied: “Concentration, focus, maybe believe that you can be in front. It’s not bad to be in front down there. It’s going to be a tough game and we know how they perform this year. They will be stinging from the last game [57-0 loss to New Zealand], but we’ve just got to stay pretty clear with what we do.”
The Springboks, meanwhile, will be hurting after their 57-0 humiliation at the hands of the All Blacks, the worst defeat they have suffered against the world champions in their history.
Cheika expects there to be some sort of backlash from the Boks and doesn’t expect coach Allister Coetzee to make too many changes.
“I think they’ll stay solid; I can’t see them making a lot of changes,” Cheika said. “They’ve had a good run until last weekend, so I can’t see they’d be making changes too swiftly. They’ve had a few injuries, so maybe a couple of guys will come back in, but apart from that, they will stay the same.
“I’ve been in that [losing] situation, especially at half-time. Sometimes you don’t even struggle, the other mob are just bloody good and they take their chances.
“How they played against New Zealand will probably be different to how they play against us.”
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