Australia v Wales preview: Big improvement needed from Wallabies to keep trophy hopes alive

Australia v Wales,

OL Stadium, Lyon,

Sunday, 8pm Irish time

“I don’t know what your description of tough love is, mate.” Australia’s beleaguered coach Eddie Jones was asked about his approach to picking up morale after the Wallabies’ shock defeat to Fiji which leaves them fighting for their Rugby World Cup lives against an unbeaten Wales.

It’s reasonable to surmise there hasn’t been much cuddling emotionally. A showdown between teams coached by Warren Gatland and Jones would normally provide ripe, colourful content pre-match but, for different reasons, it’s been very quiet.

Jones has reshuffled the deck, Andrew Kellaway comes in at fullback, Ben Donaldson switches to outhalf while Carter Gordon drops to the bench. Tate McDermott returns at scrumhalf while Robert Leota is named at blindside flanker, with Tom Hooper switching to openside. Hooker David Porecki continues to captain the side in the continued absence of the injured Will Skelton.

The Australian head coach admitted: “Look, I’ve let Australian rugby down; I haven’t done the job I was brought in to do. I was brought in to turn it around, so I feel that responsibility. Do I approach it differently? No. I just get the team well prepared, that’s the only thing I can control.”

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There was a note of defiance too. “We’re alive. All you’ve got to be is alive, and if we beat Wales on Sunday, we’re alive. We were always going to get this game at some stage. It’s come a little bit earlier than we thought it would, so we’ve got an opportunity to show on Sunday whether we can fight and get the result we need to get. I’m confident we can.”

Gatland has recalled 12 of the starting team from their opening game against Fiji, retaining just three, Louis-Rees Zammit, captain Jac Morgan and number eight Taulupe Faletau from the victory over Portugal. Ryan Elias is named at hooker while there is no place in the 23 for co-captain Dewi Lake.

A key for Wales will be to start the match in a positive vein and quickly try and drain whatever confidence is left in this Wallaby line-up.

The Australians have some brilliant attacking threats in the backline in Andrew Kellaway, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Mariko Koroibete to highlight three, but they have been hamstrung by basic patterns that rarely look past crashing it up. The state of flux at halfback hasn’t helped.

The Welsh pack looks stronger and if they can deliver on that they have an outhalf in Dan Biggar, in-form centres in Nick Tompkins and George North and the cutting edge in the back three to maximise that advantage.

It’s hard to gauge where the Aussies are mentally at this point and the suspicion is that unless they get off to a good start and the halfbacks can get the backline firing, it will be Wales who will be celebrating a third win and a place in the knockout stages.

Australia: A Kellaway; M Nawaqanitawase, J Petaia, S Kerevi, M Koroibete; B Donaldson, T McDermott; A Bell, D Porecki (capt), J Slipper; N Frost, R Arnold, R Leota, T Hooper, R Valetini. Replacements: M Faessler, B Schoupp, P Fa’amausili, M Philip, F McReight, N White, C Gordon, S Vunivalu.

Wales: L Williams; L Rees-Zammit, G North, N Tompkins, J Adams; D Biggar, G Davies; G Thomas, R Elias, T Francis; W Rowlands, A Beard; A Wainwright, J Morgan (capt), T Faletau. Replacements: E Dee, C Domachowski, H Thomas, D Jenkins, T Basham, T Williams, G Anscombe, R Dyer.

Referee: W Barnes (England)