Andrew Slack: Wallabies need staying power

Matt Giteau must be at the top of his game for the Wallabies to excel. Photo / Getty Images

The longer your run of defeats stretches, the closer you are to your next victory. It's a most comforting reality for Australian rugby on the eve of the Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne.

The All Blacks 32-19 win over the Wallabies in Tokyo last October was their seventh on the trot against the beloved neighbour, and indeed the 13th from the past 15 encounters between the two.

Barring some 1995 South African-style food poisoning, both Richie McCaw and Dan Carter will be turning out in black tomorrow night and of the 13 times they've done so together against Australia, they've been on the positive ledger 12 times.

Put simply, the law of averages should have the Wallabies brimming with confidence.

Half-decent teams can't just keep on losing.

Actually, that might have been our problem - we're half decent. Unfortunately, it's been the wrong half. In five of the past six Bledisloe Cup games, Australia has won the first half.

We may be slow learners, but with a bit of luck we will have finally worked out precious little silverware is presented at halftime.

After a mediocre start to this year's international programme, the Wallabies bumped it up a notch last Saturday against the Springboks.

Not only did they win the first half but the second as well. Are we becoming an 80-minute team?

It's far too soon to confirm that, but as we've been discovering for the best part of a century or more, if you don't clock on for the full 80 against New Zealand, the scoreboard usually produces an unhappy tale.

You'd hope the Wallabies are bright enough to realise that, and you'd hope they are honest enough to accept their recent record indicates too many flat patches in key periods of games. One pretty switched-on performance against South Africa may, on one hand, give them confidence, but on the other the Wallabies will realise that their history of backing up one strong performance with another is close to non-existent. Last year they won only one Tri-Nations game, so clearly there wasn't much to back up in 2009, but the 2008 record makes for interesting reading.

Their last win over the All Blacks came in Sydney in the first Bledisloe Cup match of that year.

The next week in Auckland, the All Blacks reversed the result to the tune of 39-10.

Three weeks later and the Wallabies beat South Africa in Durban by 12 points. Seven days on in Johannesburg, the Springboks embarrassed Australia by 53-8.

The words "consistency" and "ruthlessness" don't jump out at you, do they?

Having been brought up in Canterbury on a steady diet of those two ingredients, Robbie Deans will be getting impatient that, in his third year as a true blue, dinkum Aussie, the Wallabies have not yet shown it to be a part of their DNA.

When the Australians watched the two opening Tri-Nations matches, the ruthlessness and intensity of the All Blacks is what Deans would have wanted his players to pick up on, rather than any tactical or strategic nuances they might have discovered.

It doesn't matter if you learn your lessons from the enemy, and it seemed the senior duo of Rocky Elsom and Matt Giteau played against the Springboks with a very All Black-like focus.

Both those players need to be at the top of their games for the Wallabies to excel and they'll be pleased the rest of the team went along for the ride last weekend.

But it was against a South African team that took its mind off the job at various times, so Elsom, Giteau and Co understand such liberties should not be expected at Etihad Stadium.

This Wallabies team is unproven. A few players were at the last-chance corral against the Springboks and earned themselves another opportunity. However, should the inconsistency which has afflicted them in the past couple of seasons resurface, coach and selectors will soon lose patience.

For the Wallabies, tomorrow night is less about style of play and tactics, and more about showing a nose for the battle from the first whistle to the last - with no breathers allowed.

If they can do that, they'll have proven they're more than just a half-decent team, and then they just have to hope the numbers game falls their way.