Gareth Anscombe has said that Wales believe they can pick themselves up from a record-equalling 10th successive Test match defeat and beat the Wallabies on Sunday.
Wales are arguably at the lowest ebb in their 143-year international rugby history following Fiji's 24-19 weekend victory in Cardiff.
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Another demoralising result matched Wales' run of losses in 2002 and 2003, although that sequence included two reversals against each of New Zealand, England and Ireland this time around, Italy and Fiji have triumphed at the Principality Stadium.
It is more than 400 days since Wales won a Test, beating Georgia in the 2023 World Cup, and a far cry from Warren Gatland's first stint as head coach when he oversaw World Cup semi-final appearances, Six Nations title triumphs, grand slams and world No.1 status.
There are mitigating factors, with players such as Alun Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric, Dan Biggar, George North, Ken Owens and Gareth Davies all retiring from international rugby during the past 18 months, while Louis Rees-Zammit went to the NFL and injuries have severely hampered the likes of Taulupe Faletau and Josh Adams.
But Anscombe admitted: "We have to be better, and we need to be better.
"Only a win [against Fiji] was good enough, and we didn't get it. We will be hard on ourselves, but I do think we will be better for the run-out and know that we have got to improve and get better pretty quickly.
"It is going to hurt, but you can't dwell on it for too long at this level. We've got to find a way to pick ourselves back up."
Australia will arrive in Cardiff on the back of a spectacular 42-37 success against England, and they have won nine times in their last 11 visits to the Welsh capital. .
Anscombe added: "I still think our best performance is good enough to beat Australia. I think we fully believe that.
"The Wallabies are growing in confidence, so it is going to be a great challenge, but we've had success against them in the past here.
"I know the Wallabies are really well coached under Joe (Schmidt), [but] I think if we can grow another 10-20 per cent in some little areas then we have a real chance."
