Legendary halfback Nick Farr-Jones hopes the Wallabies' thrashing by New Zealand was just an aberration, but has ongoing concerns about their scrum.
The Wallabies' 1991 World Cup-winning captain felt the current team had been trending in the right direction before last weekend's 51-20 thrashing by the All Blacks in Auckland.
He supported coach Ewen McKenzie who, before the Eden Park defeat, had overseen an eight-match unbeaten run.
"I believe that Ewen is the man to take this team forward. I think he will build spirit and culture," Farr-Jones said.
"I think that he will build depth and strength in this team.
"Let's hope Saturday was an aberration. But at least one positive in my view out of Saturday night is he - and the team - now understand where the benchmark is and the work they have to do."
The scrum remains an issue for Farr-Jones.
"I keep coming back to what we might say is the achilles heel of Australian rugby over the last decade, that our scrum can be vulnerable," Farr-Jones said.
"As a halfback who fed a million scrums, I know that if it's going backwards, it's very tough psychologically and to play in time and space.
"They (New Zealand) scored two tries against us from rolling mauls off set play.
"We have to get the fundamentals of our game right before we worry about the smaller things and the finer things.
"Execution is going to be critical; personnel is going to be critical.
"Working their bums off to make sure that they improve those set phases of play is going to be critical if we're going to be competitive in a year's time (at the World Cup)."
Australia's other World Cup-winning skipper, lock John Eales, felt the Wallabies' starting XV still had to be settled on.
"While our depth is good, I don't think we fully understand who our best 15 are," said Eales, who captained the 1999 Cup-winning team.
"I think that's a step that we need to get towards.
"There's a lot of positive things, but we've clearly got some way to go."
Eales and Farr-Jones are ambassadors of the Bingham Cup, the World Cup for mainly gay teams, that started in Sydney on Friday.
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