Wales 34-39 Australia: Defiant Wayne Pivac wants to lead Wales through until World Cup
- Published
Wayne Pivac took over from Warren Gatland as Wales head coach in 2019
Wales head coach Wayne Pivac says he wants to stay in his job after watching his team lose 39-34 against Australia.
Pivac's side surrendered a 34-13 lead, with the Wallabies scoring 26 unanswered points in the second half.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) will hold a review but the coach remains defiant as he prepares to travel to France to look at World Cup venues.
"I'm contracted through to the World Cup, it's in France and we're flying off tomorrow," said Pivac.
It was a third defeat for Pivac's side this autumn, after a 55-23 hammering against New Zealand and 13-12 humiliation against Georgia.
Pivac has won only three out of 12 games this year and has suffered 20 defeats in 34 matches during his three-year tenure.
When asked whether he thought this year's results were enough to keep him in his role, Pivac said: "I'm just interested in talking about today and getting over what's just happened.
"It's disappointing, the result, but there was a lot of good stuff to take out of that game which is a positive for us, moving forward."
The New Zealander replaced Warren Gatland after the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
Gatland has been linked with an interim role should a vacancy arise but denied on Saturday he had been approached by the WRU.
Pivac insisted he wanted to be at the helm at the World Cup in France next year.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that," added Pivac.
"The heat was on me during the week, I had to try and take it off the boys, and they played large parts of that game exactly as we wanted them to.
"We review every competition and we will do that and we have to take the positives out of it. Things that did not go well, we can iron out.
"I certainly want to stay. You saw today when we get things right, we are a dangerous team.
"We have more players to come back into the side and the rest is up to other people."
Pivac believes Wales displayed enough intent against Australia in the first 60 minutes to prove they can turn things around under his guidance.
"We got everything we wanted from the start of the game," said Pivac.
"I thought we built the game nicely and got ourselves in a situation where we should have won the game.
"Clearly we took advantage if their ill-discipline and the roles were reversed when they did the same to us.
"It was frustrating to all the players, I can't fault the effort the boys put in.
"We said after last week we wanted more physicality and we wanted to go out there and express ourselves.
"For large parts we did that, but we could not bring it home."
Pivac led his team to the 2021 Six Nations title and became the only Wales coach to orchestrate a Test victory over the Springboks in South Africa in July 2022.
When reflecting on what has been missing this year, Pivac added: "It's quite funny, we were having a chat in the changing room.
"There's a lot of luck in this game. When we won the [Six Nations] Championship, a lot of it went our way.
"It feels at the moment, in tight situations, it hasn't. We just have to keep believing and working because I think everyone would agree on that particular performance today, there was a marked improvement.
"I'm just focusing on our team and what we asked for during the week and what the players wanted to deliver on, and I felt they did that for for the majority of the game.
"It's one of those ones which is very tough to take. But rugby can be very cruel at times."