The Australia coach, Michael Cheika, has criticised his All Blacks counterpart, Steve Hansen, for a cheap potshot at his expense following the Wallabies’ series defeat to England. Hansen suggested that Eddie Jones had been allowed to bully Cheika in the media, an opinion dismissed by the Wallaby head coach.

In the view of Hansen, Jones has won the key psychological battles, setting the tone for England to prosper on the field. “Cheika has not come back, he’s let Eddie have a free rein to the point where he’s actually allowed Eddie to bully him in the media,” said Hansen. “I don’t know if that’s because they know each other well or whether there’s a pecking order from the old days...but that’s gone on to the park, hasn’t it?”

Cheika, though, strongly disputes that analysis. “That’s a pretty shallow sort of view … and he knows better than that,” Cheika said. “It is easy to kick blokes when they’re down. We are down, but we will be getting back up, don’t worry about that. We have been down before and we have got back up and we will be doing the same right now.”

Jones’s opinion is that Hansen is only trying to stir the pot before the Rugby Championship, while Cheika is insistent his side will stay true to their philosophy of running rugby on Saturday despite the outcome of this series. “What someone says in a newspaper is certainly not what motivates me,” he said. “It depends if I am just coaching to keep my job or if I am coaching to have Australian rugby play the type of football we want to play.

“What do you do? Panic and do something different just to have a win? I have bigger aspirations than that and sometimes you have to take a knock on the chin.”

Cheika also argues Australia would be mad to change their approach at this stage. “I don’t see many other teams changing that much. Have England changed that much from what they did over the Six Nations? Everyone has their style. Maybe we went away from ours, and it is a matter of rebuilding that. I know that’s what people in this country want to see, they want to see us play footy. We are not going to lose our belief because we lost a game. We are going to back our guys as we always do.”

The Australia camp, furthermore, disagree that mind games have had a decisive impact on their successive defeats to England. “If I thought it would have made us play better, yeah, I would have got into it,” said Cheika. “But anyone who knows the game will understand it has no bearing whatsoever on the end result. Since I have been involved in this team, I haven’t been that way.” Australia have not lost a home series 3-0 since 1971.