The Waratahs are remaining grounded after their breakthrough win over the Crusaders, driven by a greater pain around losing in 2022.
The club is full of confidence after their narrow victory at Leichhardt, however, were quick to acknowledge it will mean little if they can't back it up this week against Moana Pasifika.
This mindset comes with revamped expectations around their performances according to centre Izaia Perese, feeling the losses even harder in Super Rugby Pacific than last year's winless season given they have shown on their day they can match it with the best.
“If you get those wins, you 100% have to celebrate them, enjoy them with the guys but when it comes to a new weekend, you have to reset, refocus your mindset,” Perese told reporters.
“Everyone is driving that, including the players, we know we have to back it up this week because, at the end of the day, it’s always going to test us so we want to back it up week-by-week.
“We’re so far in this season with some good and bad wins, as well as some tough losses but I feel like that’s behind us now and the losses hurt even more this year than what they did last year.
“We’ve put so much hard work into our prep, we know what we’re capable of and say in a game we get a card or it doesn’t flow our way and we don’t execute, it hurts so much more because we care a lot more, we know we can be one of the best teams now.
“We expect so much of ourselves this year and I think that’s the standard DC (head coach Darren Coleman) and the coaching staff put on us.”
This has been reinforced by the coaching staff, who recognise the need for consistent victories.
“I think we’re getting there. I wouldn’t say on the weekend, just because a few of the games were close, that all that ground’s been made up and everything’s hunky-dory,” assistant coach Jason Gilmore said on Monday.
“I still think we’re probably a step or two behind, but we are catching up and I think the next month of football will show whether the Aussie teams can turn those close losses into close victories.
“When you’re getting consistency of wins then that’s when you can say the Aussie teams are catching up, have caught up, and are doing well."
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As a result, Monday's return to training was far from celebrating and patting each other on the back. Rather, the Waratahs sat through a 'tough' review, with lock Jed Holloway suggesting it showed they were still far from their best.
“Even though it was a great win, it wasn’t a good review. There were plenty of work-ons and we weren’t near our best performance,” he admitted.
“We talk about playing our type of Rugby and I think we missed a couple of opportunities to do that. We had one try from maul, the set-play from Pietschy we never got into any shape and then Izzy’s fend on a couple of blokes in the corner was just a bit of individual brilliance.
“Looking back at the game, yeah it was a great win but I feel we probably didn’t look our best this season
“In the past, we’ve had a tendency to get a bit complacent after a good win or performance so we’re making sure we are focused on Moana. We’re in a pretty nice position after that win on the weekend and for us to go forward for the rest of the competition, we need to keep getting best and that starts day-by-day.”
