The Wallabies are increasingly aggressive in defence © Getty Images

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The Wallabies are intent on becoming a defensive powerhouse capable of landing world rugby's greatest prizes, and coach Ewen McKenzie's renewed focus on defence is reaping rewards with his team having kept their opposition tryless in three of their past five Tests.

And the 6-0 victory over France at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne on Saturday marked their first shut-out in seven years and 97 Test matches stretching back to John Connolly's reign.

"Normally you only hear about defence if it hasn't been done well," Wallabies defence coach Nick Scrivener said. "It's not the sexy part of the game, but no one wins anything of note without having good defence. The Kookaburras just won a [hockey] World Cup conceding three goals in the whole tournament. You look at any sport, it's true."

Defence was the hallmark of Australia's 1999 Rugby World Cup-winning team, and McKenzie knows the Wallabies must develop the same ruthless mindset to seriously challenge the top-ranked All Blacks. McKenzie and Scrivener have appointed winger and vice-captain Adam Ashley-Cooper, centre Matt Toomua, flanker Scott Fardy and prop James Slipper as the Wallabies' defence leaders, focusing heavily on work rate, communication, aggression and discipline, and they have been charged with driving the team's "behavioural standards".

"I was once told the best defence policy or tactic is to pick blokes who want to tackle," Scrivener said. "We've been working hard since the spring tour on having a good appetite for it and to be physical."

And to be aggressive.

"We want to be a team that takes a bit of risk with our defence, as we want to be a team that takes a bit of risk when we attack as well," Scrivener said. "The best defensive teams aren't necessarily the teams with the highest completed tackles or the least missed tackles. Gain-line dominant tackles play a big part as well. We want to be aggressive. We don't want to be a team that's passive and defends for 20 phases and doesn't put any pressure on the opposition and waits for a mistake. We want to force the mistake."

Scrivener said the Wallabies were too adventurous in attack in the first few Tests of McKenzie's tenure, and too many handovers created "enormous defensive stress" against the All Blacks and Springboks in the 2013 Rugby Championship.

"We've got the balance better as we moved forward," he said. "That started to come to the fore on the spring tour. "We've now got a [playing] group that works really hard. We recognise that our scrambling is really good, and that's just effort and character really … if you've got that, you can take a few more risks in terms of your line speed."

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