Australia rugby coach Ewen McKenzie says Eden Park a challenge to relish

McKenzie was disappointed Australia were unable to break the 12-12 deadlock with New Zealand at the Olympic Stadium and felt they lacked a little bit of composure in the last 10 minutes when they were a man up.

Ewen Mckenzie looks on during an Australian Wallabies training session at Ballymore Stadium on in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

SYDNEY // Australia coach Ewen McKenzie sees breaching New Zealand’s fortress Eden Park next week as a challenge to relish after his Wallabies held the world champions to a draw in their Rugby Championship opener.

McKenzie was disappointed Australia were unable to break the 12-12 deadlock at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday and felt they lacked a little bit of composure in the last 10 minutes when they were a man up after the sin-binning of Beauden Barrett.

“When you look at it, there was a game to be won and we didn’t do that,” he told reporters on Sunday.

“We haven’t classified it as anything super positive, it was a bit of nothing really, and the battle resumes again next week.

“We creep closer to them, I suppose, but we still didn’t get the win,” he added. “Kept them try-less, I guess, things like that we can hang our hat on but we’ll look at the scoreboard and see it as a missed opportunity.

“At 12-12, you need a little bit of composure, you only need to score once.”

Saturday’s draw brought an end to New Zealand’s winning streak at 17 matches - one shy of a new record for top tier nations - but to win next week’s return the Wallabies will have to break a much longer run of All Blacks success.

New Zealand have won their last 32 tests at Eden Park, while the last Australia victory was back in 1986.

“We’ll hear all week about history but that’s history and we’re not living in the past,” McKenzie added.

“I always look at those things as opportunities because everyone tells you can’t do things I always go, ‘well let’s see about that’.

“It’s a fantastic motivator, if we can be the first team that does something for however long, that’s a special team. So bring it on.

“It’ll get sorted on the field, it won’t get sorted in the history books.”

McKenzie said Australia would stick to a game built predominantly around running the ball even if conditions were as wet at Eden Park as they were in Sydney on Saturday and hope for better outcomes.

“There’s plenty of stuff to improve, we’re quite good as a team playing multiple phase and scoring tries and that’s sort of the hallmark of the team,” he said.

“We created multiple phase we just didn’t quite get to the opportunity.

“We need to look fair and square in our own backyard and say there were some fantastic opportunities in the game last night we just didn’t take.

“That’s a function of pressure and the occasion but there were some simple opportunities, simple overlaps or whatever, and we didn’t see them or get to them.”

Follow our sports coverage on twitter at @SprtNationalUAE