New Wallaroos coach Jo Yapp has been given a stark reminder of just how wide the gap is between the top four and the rest on the World Rugby rankings, after the Wallaroos were dominated in close to every aspect of the game in their 33-14 loss to Canada on Saturday night.
Not shy in laying down the challenge to her side that she wanted to lead the Wallaroos' rise into the top four at her introductory press conference earlier this year, Yapp's side entered their opening Pacific Four clash confident they could end their 10-year drought against Canada. Instead, their forwards were sent backpedalling early and their set-piece struggled to fire.
Teething issues were to be expected given the squad had just eight days together in the lead up to their opening match of the year, while Canada already had several hit-outs under their belt including an impressive 50-7 win over the USA two weeks ago; but Yapp will be wary that her side has just six days to right their wrongs ahead of their must-win clash with U.S. in Melbourne.
From the opening minutes Canada's forward dominance shone as they easily bashed their way through the Wallaroos' defence, before their rolling maul took over the show with two tries within the opening 10 minutes. Meanwhile their scrum also had the Wallaroos on their heels, easily dominating their front-row with the pressure resulting in Australia losing four of their own feeds.
Bridie O'Gorman looked sluggish, as she struggled to withstand the relentless pressure at scrum time, and her poor ball handling led to several turnovers and even a try early in the second half, while Eva Karpani failed to get the go-forward she usually enjoys.
"We definitely expected a physical Canadian side," Yapp said after the loss. "Unfortunately, we just got a really slow start and that first sort of 10 to 15 minutes, we just were losing the collisions and maybe that's cause, you know, not having that hit out that they've had was tough. But then once we got into the game, we competed really well against them.
"Obviously in favour of Canada in terms of them having had a couple of hit-outs coming into this, but when we got our set-piece right, it functioned really well. But yeah, there was just a couple of times where obviously people are learning new stuff and inevitably then there's going to be some mistakes.
"One hundred percent [it was a reality check] and that was coming into this whole competition, it's about finding out exactly where we're at. We've had eight days together, and I think on the back of that performance, there's loads of positives, but we know now exactly what we need to do."
All of Canada's points would come from the forward pack as they repeatedly spotted space around the ruck as the Wallaroos struggled to keep up with international intensity.
"Definitely a little bit of a slow start from us and I think we'll take that back into our review and make sure that we're switched on from the start," Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard said post-match.
"They brought a lot of ruck speed pressure, I think for us it's just that adjustment into the international speed of the game and the international intensity for us, just making sure in our threes we're working tighter, we're getting to our rucks and being really disciplined in our shape of that area of the game to make it easier for our nines to clear that ball.
"[It was] definitely frustrating and not the way we want to concede points at any point in time. I think you look at both scrum and line out very technical elements of the game and you take the best people from the country and put them together and there's going to be some teething issues and there's going to be time to work out those combinations.
"I think as we sort of said when we executed our lineout well, it worked well for us tonight."
The Wallaroos got some pay through their offensive weapons Georgina Friedrichs, Maya Stewart and Desiree Miller, who demonstrated how threatening they could be when given the chance as they sliced through the defence and bent the line on multiple occasions. But too often their limited possession was sent back in pointless kicks that failed to put any pressure on their opposition with Bella McKenzie and Lori Cramer seemingly often in two minds.
"There were times in that game where we created massive attacking opportunities where we had a lot of space on the edge, and it was just execution or that last pass," Yapp said.
"I think we lost a few kick battles out there today. We just weren't fielding them and they [Canada] were finding grass too easily. That's definitely something we need to look at.
"Execution let us down, I think the positive things were that we really created opportunities and I also think the character that the girls showed in the last five minutes, it would have been easy to let them in that last five minutes with the score line. But actually the attitude the players showed to really front up and to keep them out, I think showed the type of group they are."
Yapp and Leonard were quick to find positives in their performance though with sights already turning to next week's match.
"I think definitely not the way we wanted to execute," Leonard said. "But I think plenty of opportunity out there and I think coming off the back of that game, we take that as a positive moving into next week and look at how we can create opportunity, particularly our edges through Maya Stewart, Desiree Miller and use that to our strengths next time.
"I think despite the result out there not being what we were after tonight as Jo's mentioned, there's plenty of positives and plenty of strengths that we showed in our game when we do execute the way we want to.
"We'll definitely come away, recover well tonight and tomorrow morning before we head off to Melbourne and then, yeah, plenty of sessions this week to regroup, look at what we need to sharpen up in our execution and make sure that we're ready to go for USA on Friday."