Australia must stick to their game plan in Pretoria: Cheika

PRETORIA, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Sticking to their own brand of rugby and ignoring the exhausting altitude is going to be key to Australian success against South Africa in their Rugby Championship clash on Saturday, coach Michael Cheika said. The Wallabies have yet to win at the Pretoria stadium in six previous tests and have had a disappointing year with a series defeat at home to England and two losses to New Zealand. "We want to go to Pretoria and play a real Australian style of game and we’ll see where it lands us. We’ve started to show some signs of that over the last couple of weeks,” he told a news conference on Friday. "Maybe we think too much about what's going to happen at altitude or what's going to be the kicking game from them, instead of just saying, 'let's play our game, go here and play to the best of our ability and see what happens'. "We don't think we've fulfilled that as much as we wanted to this season." Australia beat South Africa and Argentina at home in the annual southern hemisphere championship but face a stiff test in the thin Highveld air. "We've trained pretty hard because we understand there's going to be a lot of action in the game, there's going to be a lot of running, a lot of chasing," Cheika added. "If you even want to have the hope of being successful down here you've got to be prepared to put everything on the line physically." (Reporting by Mark Gleeson; Editing by Ed Osmond)