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Jones: Pressure on Wallabies

The task has been made tougher for the hosts on Sunday after star forward David Pocock was ruled out of the series through injury.

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England rocked second-ranked Australia with a commanding 39-28 victory in the first Test in Brisbane on Saturday, leaving the Wallabies needing to win the remaining two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney to claim the series.

Australia's job became that much harder with news that No.8 Pocock, one of world rugby's premier forwards, has been ruled out with a fractured eye socket.

Jones, England's first overseas coach who is unbeaten in his seven Tests in charge after winning this year's Grand Slam crown, said England had their destiny in their own hands.

"If you go to a three-Test series and you're in the game in the second Test you're pretty excited," he told reporters after Saturday's win.

"There's a lot of expectation about the Wallaby team. They've come back from the World Cup as the second best team in the world, they've got the world's best coach and the expectation is high for them.

"So they're under a lot of pressure next week."

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But hard taskmaster Jones, who coached Australia to the 2003 World Cup final where they lost to England, said his team also had to improve further to ensure a series victory after recording their first ever win in Brisbane.

"What we've done is give ourselves one more game in the series," he said.

"We've made history, but that's not enough for us. It's all about next week. We can improve significantly.

"I thought for 45 minutes we played some good rugby. We gave the Wallabies some tries and we will have to work on our defence."

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The defeat has ramped up the pressure up on Australia coach Michael Cheika and the Wallabies to keep the series alive in Melbourne next weekend.

But they must do it without the services of the indispensable Pocock, who was replaced in the 69th minute of the first Test under the blood rule before scans later confirmed the eye injury.

"There's another Test match next week. It was our first one for seven months and we knew there'd be some things we wouldn't get right," Cheika said after the demoralising Brisbane loss.

"I think we got a good handle on what we need to get right for next Saturday.

"But all credit to England, they played their game very well and they deserved to win, no doubt about it. They took their moments.

"We needed to be winning the moments more regularly for longer in the game and to bring that speed up for as long as humanly possible in an 80-minute game."

Agence France-Presse

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