There’s a fire burning in the Wallabies as they vie to square up their series against England, Israel Folau says.
No matter how this second Test is viewed, at one-nil down in a three-Test series, it is a must-win for the Wallabies and Folau said it’s a situation of which his side was fully aware.
“Yeah there is (a fire burning). At the moment we’re just in a hole at the moment,” he said.
“We want to obviously square up the series and there is no other option, I guess.
“That’s the situation that we’re in and the last thing we want to do is go into our shells.
“We want to be playing footy as well and I think we’ll be doing that on the weekend.”
The biggest focus for the Wallabies backline is converting a scintillating 20 minutes into a damaging 80 and Folau said it was down to an attitudinal change.
“ I guess we’ve got to stay on top and be consistent through the whole 80 minutes,” he said.
“We learnt a lot from the game last week and now that it’s done and dusted we’ve been working really hard together as a team when we’re on the training paddock and hopefully we can go out there and deliver on Saturday night."
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has stuck with his new centre combination of Samu Kerevi and Tevita Kuridrani and Folau was full of praise for last week’s debutant Kerevi.
“I thought the guys in the backline really played well last week and someone like Kerevi who had his first Test, I thought he did quite well,” he said.
“We can take a lot of positives out of last weekend and try to roll into this week but there’s plenty of room to improve and we’ve been doing that so far this week.”
Folau was a standout for the Wallabies in Brisbane, leading the run metres and scoring a try and the fullback said his focus was on creating those same opportunities this weekend.
“I’m really comfortable with where I’m at in the team and it’s all about finding myself and providing opportunities for the team.
“I’m really comfortable with the role that I have so I look forward to it again on Saturday.”