Wayne Pivac insisted he "wouldn't be here" if he didn't think he would be leading Wales to the 2023 World Cup as he once again was forced to defend his increasingly fraught position.
The under-fire Wales coach will head to France on Sunday for a World Cup recce as his chances of doing the same at next year's World Cup were left hanging by a thread after a ninth defeat in 12 this calendar year to cap off a miserable 2022.
Pivac will fly out on Sunday as part of preparations for next year's tournament, with the Welsh Rugby Union having not been expected to make any snap decisions on Pivac's future as Wales coach prior to Saturday's match ahead of an end-of-campaign review. However, a defeat to the injury-hit Wallabies whereby Wales threw away a 21-point lead has only turned the heat up on the former Scarlets boss.
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Following home defeats to Italy and Georgia this year, questions were once again asked of his future as Wales coach. However, he insisted he wasn't going anywhere and would be heading over to France on Sunday regardless of the growing calls for him to depart.
"That’s for someone else to comment on," he replied when asked whether he had done enough to keep his job. "I'm contracted through to the Rugby World Cup."
When asked if he would be in France on Sunday, the answer was even blunter. "Yep. I’m contracted through to the World Cup, it's in France and and we're flying off tomorrow [Sunday]," he said.
With the likes of Jamie Roberts questioning whether he warranted leading Wales to the World Cup, Pivac's days as Wales coach feel numbered. However, he remains insistent he will be leading them to bid to improve on their semi-final run from 2019.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that," he told Amazon Prime. "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 the competition. 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.”
Ruing bad luck, Pivac wouldn't be moved on his poor record, which has seen Wales win just three of their 12 matches this calendar year, saying he was "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," he 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 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."
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