Rugby: Wallabies 'hugely improved' in training

Wallabies assistant Mick Byrne. Photo / Nick Reed

Wallabies assistant Mick Byrne has urged patience, convinced his skills revolution is on the right track, even if angry supporters can't see evidence on match day.

Byrne has spent the last 12 months on Michael Cheika's coaching staff after working with the All Blacks in a similar skills-focused role through three World Cup campaigns.

On face-value evidence of Saturday's 54-34 Bledisloe Cup thumping, the former AFL ruckman has had little impact.

But he says it is only a matter of time as he's seeing huge improvement on the training paddock and persistence will inevitably bring that out in matches.

Byrne pointed out that two years into his stint with New Zealand came the country's worst-ever finish at a World Cup in 2007, when they were knocked out in the quarter-finals by France.

They emerged from the fallout and recriminations from that tournament as the slick, well-drilled outfit they are today, winning the next two World Cups and carving out an aura of near invincibility.

"If you go back, 2007 wasn't a flash year for us trying to get things right," Byrne said in Christchurch yesterday.

"But certainly when it clicks into gear, it happens, and when you turn the corner, you turn it pretty quickly.

"The key is perseverance and these boys' energy to do that has been tremendous."

Byrne admitted Australia's passing and tackling skills weren't up to scratch in Saturday's Bledisloe Cup opener and said he felt sympathy for fans demanding quick progress in that department.

"What we know, and it's been no different in any environment I've been in, we see the improvement on the training field before it transfers to the game," he said.

"If we are not seeing on it the training field, that's when I get frustrated or start questioning what we are doing.

"But we are seeing huge improvements there and it's going to be persistence that will start to transfer it out into the game.

"I understand people's frustrations that they're not seeing it straight away.

"Maybe that's a thing of society, there's an instant gratification that's everybody is after. But this is just hard work that takes time."

- AAP