Aussies in determined mood

Sharpe: 87th cap

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Australia are determined to end their Tri-Nations campiagn on a high on Saturday.

The Wallabies face South Africa in Bloemfonein bidding to claim second place behind New Zealand, as well as avenge last Saturday's 44-31 loss to the Springboks in Pretoria

The visitors will also be trying to end a terrible run playing at altitude in South Africa, where they have not won a Test since 1963.

Veteran Australian lock Nathan Sharpe admits last week's result was one that got away, but said: "We've probably had a couple of those this year and they're very hard lessons to learn."

Sharpe is preparing to win his 87th Test cap for his country and will have plenty of unfamiliar faces around him at Vodacom Park after Robbie Deans drafted in Stephen Moore, Mark Chisholm and Ben McCalman following last week's defeat.

The trio were named ahead of Saia Fainga, Dean Mumm and Richard Brown when the Wallabies coach named his team earlier this week, while the back-line remained unchanged.

Sharpe, who was an injury doubt after hurting his ankle in the last game, has recovered to take his place and will line up alongside Chisholm as the lock pair.

He said: "They've been in the Tri-Nations squad from the outset so you'd expect them to have a fairly good understanding of what's going on."

Line-out

The 32-year-old also denied there were any issues in the line-outs - an area of their game the Australians seemed to struggle with last week.

Even Deans raised the issue after the game, but Sharpe continued: "If you look at the game, there really was no issue previous to the last few minutes.

"The South Africans made a big fuss about it afterwards, so it made it appear there was a problem, but we did not see it that way.

"It was just a few small mistakes at the end. We did not view it as a major problem and we feel we are definitely on the right track in the line-outs."