Rome wasn't built in a day and nor will the Wallabies return as world beaters overnight, but Dave Rennie is confident that they will have their time in the sun in due time despite the Bledisloe Cup vanishing from their grasps yet again.
Three weeks ago in Wellington the Wallabies surprised Rennie as much as anybody after leaving New Zealand’s capital with a draw against the All Blacks to start their 2020 Test campaign.
Two matches later, in their first Test on home soil of the year, the Wallabies failed to build on their encouraging start and went back a step, as the All Blacks won by a record 43-5 margin over their trans-Tasman rivals to wrap up the Bledisloe Cup for an 18th straight year.
But Rennie, who took over from Michael Cheika last November but only got his hands on the squad in September, was never expecting miracles to be achieved overnight.
And while he knows an immediate response is required in Bledisloe IV, the New Zealander encouraged long-frustrated supporters to stay with them for the journey on the way to the 2023 World Cup in France.
“We’re five or six weeks into a four-year campaign,” Rennie told reporters following Saturday night’s heavy defeat on a wet Sydney track.
“We’re gutted about the result.
“I must admit, first game in Wellington, I was nervous about an All Black performance that would find us under pressure, but we showed a lot of character that night.
“Look, all I’m going to say is, we’re going to keep working hard, we think we’ve got some good kids coming through, we need to respond immediately, and the plan is you’ll see that next week.”
All week the Wallabies had spoken about the need to be accurate and take their opportunities.
Indeed, on announcing his side on Thursday, Rennie told reporters that anyone in the team thinking that the All Blacks wouldn’t cut them to shreds if they misfired was given a wake-up call from their Bledisloe II loss at Eden Park a fortnight ago.
On Saturday night, the Wallabies failed to heed those same lessons.
Right from the outset they were inaccurate and mistimed their runs, with winger Filipo Daugunu being sent to the sin bin for a carelessly taking Caleb Clarke out in the air.
But even when they had the ball, they too often squandered possession through poor kicking and pushed passes.
Once again, Rennie lamented those same fundamental errors.
“As we talked about the last time we played the All Blacks, you can’t turn over the ball as often as we did,” he said
“It puts a lot of pressure on us defensively.
“You’ve got to give them credit, I thought they were really sharp, really clinical, skill-set was outstanding in those conditions, really smart kicking game that they implemented really well and even their game awareness, they took a couple of well-taken tries, so I thought they were top-notch and we were a long way off it tonight, and that was reflected in the score.”
The Wallabies weren’t helped by the injuries to co-playmakers James O’Connor and Matt To’omua, but Rennie wouldn’t use the loss of the experienced duo, which forced him to turn to uncapped Brumbies pair Noah Lolesio and Irae Simone, as an excuse.
“We’re not going to use that as an excuse,” he said.
“We prepared well.
“You can’t turn over the ball as often as we did, we got caught pushing passes.
“What we talked about at half-time was just trying to build some pressure, go multi-phase and for 20 minutes we actually played pretty well. We had some pill and defended well, and if you can go four-five phases defending, they’re actually going to kick back to us. But 20 minutes of competitive footy is nowhere near enough to cut it with the All Blacks.
“There was certainly a gulf between the two performances tonight.”
