Wales work up a sweat to end their Australia hoodoo If there was a shock it was at loosehead where Gethin Jenkins was overlooked for Bath's Paul James. However, this makes Wales's game plan rather obvious. James is a more powerful scrummager and Wales will take it to the Wallabies pack from the outset, before the more mobile Jenkins is introduced when the pretty stuff starts. With fellow Lion Phillips on the bench as well as Justin Tipuric, the impact players are there to ensure that the Dragons are not snuffed out at the death. That has become all too familiar a script in the past six years and 20 internationals since Wales last claimed one of the three big southern hemisphere scalps, a period in which they have won a Grand Slam, two Six Nations Championships and reached a World Cup semi-final. They have lost nine times against Australia since beating them 21-18 in Gatland's first year, with six of the past seven encounters having been decided by a single score and with the last four being won by Australia by a combined total of nine points. Against South Africa in June, Wales lost by a point in the last seconds due to a penalty try. Enough is enough, said the skills coach Rob Howley, deputising on Tuesday for Gatland, who was away at an International Rugby Board meeting with referees. "It's important that it stops now, in terms of being able to grind out victories in the last five minutes, having composure on the ball, playing the scoreboard and making sure we get over that line," Howley said. Supporters will be supporters and accusations of brittle psyches, as well as whispers of dark forces, have greeted Wales's continued shortfall. Warburton, however, rejects this bemusement. "The way I see it is that you are not unlucky nine times in a row," the flanker said. Australia have obviously been that smidgen better than we have, but it has come to the time, with the World Cup on the horizon and the senior players in the group, when we really do have to get a win over one of these teams if we are to be considered one of the best in the world. That is what we've been working towards. Work is the appropriate word, although hard labour may be yet more apt. James, who is finally emerging from the shadow of the 112-time capped Jenkins, detailed the schedule designed not just to help Wales get over the line, but also off it. Wales have struggled in the first half in recent autumn Tests. This has been the toughest Welsh camp we have had, including that one in Poland before the last World Cup. One or two of the players probably have been sick," James said. We have been in the cryotherapy chamber three times a day and have been doing our first sessions at 6.30am - which as I'm not an early bird I don't like that much - and some days been doing our last session at 6pm. I have just been lying in my bed in the evening like a zombie. They have pushed us to the limit. [The coaching staff] have pushed us to the limit, and hopefully that will stand us in good stead against Australia. James guesses that it is not just the players" physicality which is being stretched to snapping point. "They probably are trying to break us upstairs, to get us mentally tough," James said. What is good is that the boys are tight and we aren't biting on their banter. We're just shrugging it off and laughing. But they have been cracking the whip. WALES TEAM TO PLAY AUSTRALIA (Saturday, 2.30pm, Millennium Stadium): Leigh Halfpenny (Toulon), Alex Cuthbert (Blues), George North (Northampton), Jamie Roberts (Racing Metro), Liam Williams (Scarlets), Dan Biggar (Ospreys), Rhys Webb (Ospreys), Paul James (Bath), Richard Hibbard (Gloucester), Samson Lee (Scarlets), Jake Ball (Scarlets), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys), Dan Lydiate (Unattached), Sam Warburton (capt), Taulupe Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons). Replacements: Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Gethin Jenkins (Blues), Rhodri Jones (Scarlets), Bradley Davies (Wasps), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), Mike Phillips (Racing Metro), Rhys Priestland (Scarlets), Cory Allen (Blues).