WALLABIES coach Michael Cheika admitted he is up against "the master" this afternoon as his side take on Warren Gatland's Wales for the top spot in Pool A.

The former number 8 can take his side to the top of the group of death with a win at Twickenham, but insisted he wasn't too focussed on the men from the other side of the Severn Bridge.

He said: "I think it's just about ourselves.

"This whole journey for us is about where we've come from and we're coming up against the master coach.

"He knows how to manoeuvre things around and he's got a lot of success from it.

"I'm in the lower section there of the tier when it comes to coaches but there's no need for those statements or anything like that.

"I'm not going to change the tune of what I've been saying or what we've been doing."

Australia's 33-13 thumping of England saw Stuart Lancaster's men dumped out of their own World Cup last week.

The loss has seen a wide-spread call for Lancaster's head, and his counterpart from Down Under sympathises with the man he locked horns with last week.

Cheika said: " Our goal is not to put Stuart Lancaster in a difficult position.

"Our goal is to win a game so we can try and get through what is a very difficult pool.

"That's something I'm not involved in and I don't wish that sort of difficulty on anyone, because I've been there.

"It's hard because you feel like you want to do more.

"I don't know him that well, but he seems a very genuine guy and very proud of what he does.

"I'm sure he'll bounce back."

Assessing the performance, the head coach believed there were plenty of creases to iron out, which will come as a worry to Welsh fans.

The ex-Waratah said: "It wasn't perfect, there are lots of areas we need to improve on.

"But the commitment was very good and we need to take that forward.

"We knew there would be a lot of pain because we were in England's back yard and the atmosphere was outrageously loud.

"It's not easy to deal with when you're in the minority like that."

With a stadium awash with red in London, the Australians will be up against it again despite their superb travelling support.  

Cheika said: "Here in particular, not only do you have to keep the opposition out of the game you need to keep the crowd out of the game because the noise is like a tsunami coming at you and it can really energise a team, there's no doubt about that."

One area the Wallabies have improved beyond measure is the scrum, and the Aussie hailed Argentine forwards coach Mario Ledesma for the turn-around.

He said: "We've been working hard on it and like Mario has taught me - the scrum is a very humbling part of the game because you can dominate one and you can get your pants pulled down in the next if you're not on top of your game.

"You've got to try to be consistent.

"It went well for us against England, we've got to get better again for Wales."

A win would see Australia take on Scotland in the quarter finals followed by France or Ireland in the semi finals and avoiding the southern hemisphere duo of South Africa and New Zealand altogether until the final.

But Cheika wouldn't be pulled on the possible permutations.

He said: "As much as I'd love to be a clairvoyant, I haven't got that one.

"The Lotto numbers would be nice, but that's all I can answer is what's going to happen tomorrow and prepare for that.

"The beauty of a World Cup is that the spectators can get into that side of it and predict who is going to win, what's going to happen and the possible configurations of the finals.

"But then for us on the inside we've got to focus on what we're doing.

"The approach doesn't change at all.

"We just keep going day-by-day.

"You're going to get bored of me saying it, but we get to tomorrow, see if we can improve bit and recover well so we can try to be better the following day.

"That's been our approach the whole way through.

"If we do our best and prepare the best you can, the outcomes will come for us.

"At the end of the day the pool score will be the pool score dependent on how we perform."