Just another step: Wallabies coach shrugs off devastating win over England
We will take one game at a time says boss as he prepares for Wales clash
Michael Cheika has made taking one game at a time the underpinning theme of Australia’s World Cup, so there was little surprise that he brushed off a devastatingly brutal victory over England as "just another step".
The Australia coach could have been forgiven a hearty celebration having emerged from the fevered atmosphere of a hostile Twickenham with a record-breaking 33-13 win that moved them safely into the quarter-finals.
But that would have been wholly out of character with the measured calm he has adopted throughout a coaching career where his understated mantras focus on small steps and minor improvements.
What Cheika described as ’just another step’, was in fact a giant leap into the last eight, with their final pool match against Wales next Saturday, now a battle to decide who finishes top rather than the sudden death knockout it could have been.
"I know you don’t want to hear it but we just keep going day by day and genuinely living that story.
"Improve a bit, recover well, that’s the approach the whole way through. If you prepare the best way you can, the outcomes will come from that."
Flyhalf Bernard Foley was England’s chief torturer and a one-man wrecking ball for the hosts’ World Cup ambitions with two tries and 28 of Australia’s 33 points, thanks to his unfalteringly accurate right boot.
Yet this was no one-man show. England were taken apart in all areas of the game, dominated at the scrum, where they were supposed to have the upper hand, and a clear second best when it came to finding pockets of space in their opponents’ defences.
Next week, back at Twickenham, Cheika will pit his wits against Wales coach Warren Gatland and he is expecting a testing encounter.