Australia
Wallabies take off on World Cup campaign
ESPN Staff
August 29, 2015
Wallabies take part in final gruelling training session © Getty Images
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Wallabies coach Michael Cheika wants to turn hopers into believers for Australia's Rugby World Cup campaign and has consulted several of his predecessors to ensure their preparations are thorough. The Wallabies squad left Sydney on Saturday morning with the first port of call the United States.

Australia will play the US in Chicago next weekend before heading to Britain where the World Cup will be staged from mid-September. Cheika revealed he had sought advice on tournament play from several people including Australia's World Cup-winning coaches Bob Dwyer (1991) and Rod Macqueen (1999) and other Wallabies mentors John Connolly, Eddie Jones and Alan Jones.

"I've been given excellent advice from many of the players and coaches who have been involved in successful World Cups and did successful coaching around tournaments," Cheika said at Sydney Airport on Saturday morning. "They've really given me advice of taking one game as it happens and be in that moment, and I'm going to do that."

The Wallabies recently beat major southern hemisphere rivals New Zealand and South Africa and won the Rugby Championship, but Cheika recognised not all Australians were confident about he team's World Cup prospects.

"I think there's a lot of people who are genuinely hoping we do well," Cheika said. "Our objective is to turn a lot of the hopers into believers."

He said lock Rob Simmons, who missed both Bledisloe Cup Tests with a scaphoid injury in his wrist, should be right to return against the US.

"They (the US) are an improving side, but they play with big physicality and they have got some pace out wide and you've got to be really mindful of that," Cheika said. "It's a really good game for us because we're going into someone else's backyard. They are a team on the rise, they just disposed of Canada, who are no mugs."

Cheika stressed Australia were still working on improving in a number of areas heading into their World Cup pool opener against Fiji in Cardiff on September 23.

"We want to keep improving scrums, lineouts, driving mauls, a kicking game, possibly the things where we haven't eulogised about in the past," Cheika said. "We try to keep improving those and then there's a couple of important (things to) work on that we think we can improve over the next few weeks to get us into a good space for the World Cup."

In preparation for departure for the US, Cheika made sure to push the Wallabies through one final, gruelling training session in Sydney which saw the players sprinting up hills, fight off in tug-of-war battles and end the session with clean-out work up a steep hill. But Cheika and his coaching staff were also put to the test as they joined in on the steep 150m hill sprints.

"Cheik loves a hill," a weary David Pocock told News Limited. "It is good. It is a good test, physically but also mentally. At this level, everyone is doing pretty similar training, everyone is fit, it really does come down to that mental toughness in the last 10-15 minutes.

"That is something as a group that we really are starting to see a bit of improvement in that area. That puts us in good stead going over to the World Cup."

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