For many years the Australian rugby side has been one of the smartest if not always the best team on the planet.

Calm under pressure, able to think on their feet, the Wallabies have been astute enough to embellish what works for them and learn quickly what doesn't. They set the bar high and take personal responsibility for failure.

They're a sports psychologist's dream. Think back to Michael Lynagh -- who happens to be the son of a leading sports psychologist -- somehow engineering a victory in the 1991 World Cup quarterfinal after Ireland had crossed for a game leading try with just minutes to go, or John Eales, the affable and unflappable champion second rower, popping over the match and Bledisloe Cup-winning goal as time ran out in 2000.

Even over the last eight or nine years as the talent pool has thinned, the Wallabies have played some smart footy, outmanoeuvering in lieu of outmuscling the opposition on occasion, and always seeking ways to make up for a lack of power with an abundance of guile.

But unmistakably there has been an unsettling change in the psyche of the squad that has battled through a terrible injury crisis and endured a string of gutting results under coach Robbie Deans.

Hate to trot out the shonky shrink-speak, but last week's sad 44-31 capitulation to the Springboks wasn't just a defeat but an unforgivable surrender before certain victory.

There's an unarguable tendency for this Wallabies team to fall apart in the second half of matches, or at least for good-and-decisive slabs of time.

You get the feeling that when they're "visualising" or "mentally rehearsing" games as their shrinks want them to, they're including that seemingly inevitable period when the opposition slams them for 20 points to get back into the game.

A lack of depth and arguably (last week) poor use of the bench, exacerbate the problem, but these fellas are bordering on being big-match basket cases and terrifyingly this weekend's decisive third Mandela Plate match against the Springboks in Bloemfontein could be final straw.

Deans, with a couple of extra players to choose from again, has taken the not-so-bold step of replacing three forwards: the hard-working but undersized Dean Mumm; Saia Faingaa who made a few terrible clangers amid his bustling performance in Pretoria last week and No. 8 Richard Brown, inexplicably an underperformer all season.

Mark Chisholm gets yet another chance to revive his test career as Mumm's replacement while Stephen Moore takes his rightful place as the Wallabies‘ hooker in Tatafu Polota-Nau's continued injury absence. Ben McCalman, 22, comes in for Brown, playing his first run-on Test for the Wallabies and possibly adding aggression to the pack but depriving Australia of a real No. 8.

"All three of the players coming into the pack will offer us energy," says Deans, ironically a master of psycho babble and diplomatic stonewalling.

Crucially, second rower and lineout ace Nathan Sharpe will start his 87th test match, despite an ankle injury which sent him off 64 minutes into last weekend's game. It's difficult to imagine that contest would have turned out as it did had he remained on the park.

The Springboks remain a settled unit, making just one change in the pack, which should be good news for the Wallabies, despite the fact the Australians have the yips. This South Africans are intelligent, brave and collected (compared to the flakey Aussies), but they are also old, slow and susceptible.

The stats tell a tough tale in terms of the Aussie prospects: still no win at altitude in South Africa since 1963, and only one win this season and one last season in the Tri-Nations for the Wallabies.

Despite the horror of the Pretoria loss, Deans and Aussie fans in general should take heart from the style of the Wallabies' attacking play in that match. Fullback Kurtley Beale was nothing short of brilliant and Quade Cooper again proved he's the real deal.

Cooper's weak defence is an issue, but he's worth more points to Australia than the opposition.

Other positives sports psychologists would be emphasising include the fact that it's hard to imagine Adam Ashley-Cooper playing a poor game two weeks on the trot and James O'Connor, though still not an organised winger, demonstrated for the first time last week he's capable of filling the role.

Hopefully, too, this week the coaching staff won't be blind to the fact that Will Genia, for all he's worth to this Australian outfit, has been fading badly late in the last few Tests -- understandable given he's coming back from a serious injury. For all the shortcomings of Luke Burgess (pictured, above) -- and they are considerable -- he really needs to be considered to take over at the base in the twilight of matches.

The end of the long torrid season is in sight for the Australians who can take solace from a popular motivational adage when they line up against New Zealand in Sydney for the last Tri-Nations test on September 11 seeking their first victory in 10 encounters with the Kiwis: "Perseverance," they say, "is failing nine times and succeeding the tenth."

But before that, the demons must be exorcised against the Boks.

Something tells me a change is gonna come: the Wallabies by 15.