New Wallaby coach Eddie Jones this week emphasised he would not turn the world champions into a carbon copy of the Brumbies, the team he so successfully coached in the Super 12.

Jones enjoyed great success with the ACT, culminating in this year's first-ever Super 12 triumph for a team outside New Zealand. Jones, who took over from Rod Macqueen as Wallaby coach after the victorious series against the Lions, says he had moved on.

"This is not the Brumbies," he was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald. "What we have to do is play with the resources we've got, and the Australian teams have done really well in that aspect the last few years. What we are endeavouring to do is to do it all a little bit better.

"I don't think there is any one right way to play. It is important that the Australian team can play a number of ways, whether it is a kicking game, confrontational or expansive. And that is what we will be endeavouring to do.

"I do like to see sides play with a great deal of skill. But that skill is not just using ball in hand, it is also using the ball in the best possible way.

"The game is now very much dominated by defence, and we need to be able to defeat defences in various ways, and that is now always through ball in hand."

Jones has had only little more than a week to prepare his squad for his Test debut and he realises the lack of time may work against him. However, he is not overly perturbed by it.

"I don't think you ever have enough time," he said. "It is a fairly mature side, which makes it a bit easier. We haven't tried to reinvent the wheel. All we have done is change or improve on several things."

The Wallabies just came off a physically and mentally draining three-Test series against the Lions and it will take a huge effort to lift themselves to the same levels of competitiveness.
Their new approach to overcoming the altitude problem in Pretoria will also be under scrutiny.

Unlike in the past, when the Wallabies spent a week at sea level and then move to the Highveld the day before the game, they headed directly for Pretoria this week. In contrast South Africa prepared at the coast in Durban, moving to the match venue only on Friday.