Wallabies head coach Les Kiss has already turned his focus to next weekend’s Bledisloe Cup rematch in Sydney after they suffered a heavy defeat to the All Blacks in Auckland on Saturday.
The men in black delivered an outstanding all-round performance en route to a deserved 50-19 triumph at Eden Park and outscored their trans-Tasman rivals by seven tries to three.
The result extends New Zealand‘s unbeaten run at Eden Park to 54 Tests – their last defeat at the famous venue was in 1994 – and it also means they retain the Bledisloe Cup for the 23rd successive year.
First loss for Wallabies under Kiss
Australia‘s loss is significant as it is the first time they have tasted defeat since Kiss took over the coaching reins and comes after a five-match unbeaten run under his guidance.
The Wallabies were quietly confident of causing an upset against the All Blacks after they came into this encounter after claiming a shock 42-38 win over the world champion Springboks in Perth a fortnight ago.
Despite his team’s defeat against the All Blacks, Kiss is remaining positive and is backing his troops to deliver an improved performance when the teams meet again at the Accor Stadium in Sydney next Saturday.
“It’s like anything. You get a knockback, you find out more about yourself and that’s what we’ll do. We’ll work hard on what we have to do,” he told reporters at Eden Park.
“Belief is created and sustained by not just wins and losses, they’re created by other things. These boys have a strong culture, a strong belief in themselves and a confidence about what they can do.
“But the lessons are there: if you can’t get your strengths going and their strengths grow, it makes it a difficult game.
“We’ll go back and we’ll work on what we have to and try and turn the dial in the right areas that can go to Sydney and return fire.”
Kiss said his team would go back to the drawing board following a review of the Auckland Test and will then focus on areas of improvement.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
‘The boys always said we’ve got work to do’
“Over the last five Tests, we didn’t lose the run of ourselves; the boys always said we’ve got work to do. It doesn’t change now,” Kiss said.
“We’ll have a good look at that game, like we have, get into the nuts and bolts of what we need to get right. How do we get our strengths into the game? How do we just nullify their strengths and that’s what we’ll look at.
“We need to make sure that we do the work that gets that done… it’ll be making sure that we get the things that we feel that can make a difference, that’s for sure.
“Once they got their momentum, it was hard to wrestle back.”