The Wallabies want to have Australia behind them. After a resounding 30-17 victory over the Springboks, their second win over the world champions in a row, they are very much on the path to doing so.
But the last two weeks will count for nothing unless Australia make it four straight wins by defeating the Pumas in their remaining Rugby Championship fixtures over the next fortnight.
From there, the Wallabies will then have the chance to turn what looked like being a second straight losing season into something far more positive when they head north to face Japan, Scotland, England and Wales.
"We want to get the country behind us and you've got to give them performances to make them proud," Wallabies coach Dave Rennie said after Saturday night's win in Brisbane.
"Hopefully we've made a start on that. It certainly gives us belief. We've always felt the game we're trying to play is the right type of game for our group. (It's) great to get a couple of results."
Australia's 13-point win over the Springboks, in which they scored four tries to one, was the best performance of the Rennie era to date. Crucially, it seems Rennie's men have finally learned the harsh lessons of their 3-0 series sweep by the All Blacks.
Well, their tackling body height from kick-offs aside. But more on that later.
Where they failed to capitalise on a one-man advantage across the second and third trans-Tasman encounters, the Wallabies have now, over two straight games, struck immediately after the sin-binning of Willie le Roux [Gold Coast] and then Faf de Klerk [Brisbane].
On the weekend, Len Ikitau crossed the stripe twice while the Springboks No. 9 was off; the World Cup winner's cynical slap down at the ruck emblematic of the frustrating hole the world champions currently find themselves in.
South Africa's maul, which brought three tries on the Gold Coast, was rendered useless in Brisbane by an excellent Wallabies set-piece after Rennie had indicated pre-match his men had ironed out the kinks from last week.
And then there was the 94% defensive success rate - from 101 tackles, the Wallabies missed only six.
Perhaps the most pleasing example of that statistic came late in the match in the lead-up to Marika Koroibete's first try when Reece Hodge thumped the ball down field and then led the chase, before landing an equaling thumping hit into the midriff of Damian de Allende, forcing the ball loose in the process.
The Wallabies have long wanted to play with more "balance" under Rennie, specifically in the form of kicking, yet they hadn't brought the chase to match it throughout the Bledisloe series.
On Saturday night in Brisbane, Hodge's hit gave the Wallabies the field position that allowed the hosts to expose South Africa down the short side a few minutes later, followed by the under-the-arm pass from Taniela Tupou that remains the talk of the Test match.
There were similarly strong efforts off the bench from Pete Samu, whose charge through the heart of the Springboks after a wonderful Samu Kerevi offload led to the Wallabies bonus-point try; but again the original turnover came from a Quade Cooper tackle and Hodge steal, and then two smart passes wide to Kerevi.
Perhaps the biggest play in that sequence however came from lock Matt Philip who poured all of his remaining energy to get up and make the cleanout after Samu had been tackled, allowing Tate McDermott to quickly shift the pill to the short side once more and for Koroibete to expose some tiring Springboks forwards.
Scoring two tries as a result of turnover ball, the second of which highlighted their recognition of where the space was, shows the growth in this Wallabies team, or at least that the experienced heads that have come into the side are indeed making a difference.
The resilient defensive effort in the last 15 minutes, when the Springboks had virtually all the possession and territory, was the icing on a performance that Australian fans have been crying out for.
"We wanted to back up last week's performance with another strong performance and I thought we beared up really well," said Rennie.
"We talked a lot about discipline. But I thought we were clinical. Against New Zealand we created lots of opportunities but we turned it over and got punished and tonight we were good enough to take those opportunities."
The Wallabies aren't without their issues. At the top of that list remains ill-discipline after they backed up the 18 penalties they conceded on the Gold Coast with another 17 in Brisbane.
And then there is Swinton's tackling technique which can no longer be put down to "aggression gone wrong", the back-rower has a problem with his body height at contact and needs to get lower if he is to remain on the field moving forward. It was only one final replay that spared him a second red card at Suncorp Stadium, in almost exactly the same situation as his send-off against the All Blacks last year.
But there might also be an easy solution for Swinton's problem, or at least to give him some time to work on that technique, in the form of Sean McMahon.
The Giteau Law may have been forgotten but the return of both Quade Cooper and Samu Kerevi has been huge for this Wallabies team, while skipper Michael Hooper has clearly also benefited from a season away in Japan. McMahon will be the fourth player to come off a Top League season when, as expected, he is selected in the matchday 23 for Saturday's Test in Townsville.
Rennie, at last, has options in a number of positions across the paddock, which he now needs at fullback.
With Tom Banks out for around six weeks because of a broken arm, the Wallabies coach can play it safe by promoting Reece Hodge for his first start, take a gamble on either Andrew Kellaway or Jordan Petaia, or give the backline a whole other look altogether by giving James O'Connor his first Test start of the year in the No. 15 jersey.
It is a pleasant quandary Rennie and his fellow selectors have to consider.
What cannot happen in the coming weeks however is that the Wallabies get ahead of themselves and move away from what has worked so well against South Africa in the past fortnight.
Are they trending in the right direction? No doubt. But to suggest they are in the best shape since the 2015 World Cup might be a tad premature. All they have done to date is turned the corner and squared their season at 4-4.
Whether they can sweep the Pumas and finish the year with a positive winning record thereafter will be the real measure of whether this version of the Wallabies is truly worth getting excited about.