MICHAEL CHEIKA WOULD dearly love to come away from the Aviva Stadium with a win on his return to Dublin, but the Australia head coach knows it’s about more than just results for his evolving side.
Throughout the course of this week, the former Leinster coach has spoken at length about the learning experience of a northern hemisphere tour and how the Wallabies are a work in progress.
While there are eight players in his XV for Saturday’s Test match with 50 caps or more, Cheika has worked on blending youth and experience to good effect and recent results would suggest they’re moving in the right direction under his stewardship.
“For us no matter what the selection is just to try and keep working on the things we need to improve on,” he said at yesterday’s press conference.
“No matter who is playing in the jersey, there are things we’ve been trying to work on to get better since the start of the season and this match is going to be another stop on the way.
“We always want to get better. One or two point win here is a good win here in Europe. I suppose any kind of win is, but forget about the margins or the points scoring, it’s more about how we play. The attitude we show and the intensity we bring and the skills obviously inside of that. That’s how we measure ourselves.”
The Wallabies are chasing their fourth-straight Test victory, in what would be their best winning sequence since notching seven consecutive wins on their run to the 2015 World Cup Final.
A victory in Dublin would set Australia up for a first tilt at a Grand Slam of the Home Nations since 1984, with a tour-ending match against Eddie Jones’ England next weekend.
Despite a host of changes to the side, last week’s narrow win in Paris maintained that winning momentum.
“Considering the amount of changes in last week’s team, we were pleased with the effort,” Cheika added.
“There were some areas we could improve on for sure and we’ve identified those but the whole thing is about getting better all the time. We just want to try and play the best footy we can and see how that goes in the context of the match because you don’t know what the opposition will bring on any given day so we try and play the best we can and see what happens from there.
“It’s continual, you’ll never stop wanting to do that. As many games we play and as many press conferences we come to, you’ll continually ask the same question because that’s what we want to do all the time. Keep improving, keep improving. Change a few things and get better at those, otherwise there’s nowhere to go.
“That’s what we really want to do and we know we have heaps left in us, young group of players and we know that we’re moving our game, not in a direction, but changing the small things more than anything. Small details.”
Captain Stephen Moore’s return is one of the seven changes Cheika has made from the win over France and the hooker will win his 116th cap on Saturday to join Adam Ashley-Cooper and Nathan Sharpe as the equal second most-capped Wallabies players in history.
It will be a landmark occasion for the 33-year-old, with Cheika praising his skipper’s influence both on and off the field.
“From our point of view, it’s irrelevant the number of games,” he continued.
“What he brings in leadership and experience and energy as well for a guy that has that much experience is quite inspiring for the younger guys. That’s what we try and do on this tour; mix younger guys and older guys.
“He’s a good lad. He’s planning on playing on for a while so not lets write any scripts about the number of games he’s played or anything like that because I’d say he’s looking much more to the future than the past.
“He wants to keep learning, that’s a good quality. Players who get to a certain stage of their career need to embrace that and understand that they probably can’t do all the things they did once upon a time. You learn new ways and new techniques and he’s certainly that type of guy. He works hard.”
While Moore is vastly-experienced and will know exactly what to expect under the lights at Lansdowne Road, some of the other players in the squad won’t be as familiar with an occasion of this magnitude.
Cheika says he’ll sit down with the likes of Rory Arnold, Henry Speight and Reece Hodge to prepare them mentally for the challenge.
“In the past maybe I wouldn’t have done something like that but now I tell them to go and have a look at a game, put themselves in that atmosphere — the anthems, the crowd, the noise that they’ll make and just put themselves in that atmosphere.
“Visualise yourself there is as close as you’re going to get to being there if you haven’t before so they’ll get to go to the field tomorrow [Friday's captain's run] but not with all the green shirts sitting in the stand. We’ll ask them to do a bit of that and I’m sure they will to get their heads around it.”
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