Defence coach Matt Taylor said when the All Blacks took control of last weekend's first Test, the Wallabies were guilty of dropping their heads and going away from their game plan.
Rectifying that and stiffening up their defence to the point of past effectiveness would be vital for the Australians' hopes.
"I think the times we've done well against the All Blacks, you look at Wellington and Suncorp [last year], it's about line speed and collisions. There's no secret to that. All sides try to bring good line speed and collision, and when a team defends like that, you'll cause some problems and dent their attack," he said.
"We'll look to do that a bit more than we did on occasions. I thought the intercept try took a little bit of wind out of our sails. There were periods in defence that we did well in, but we had a 10-minute period where we switched off, and our line speed wasn't as good as it should've been.
"We're happy with the system but we're also aware we need to keep improving," he said.
Taylor said defence issues were obvious during the trans-Tasman Super Rugby competition.
"The boys have worked hard on defence. We understood, particularly after the trans-Tasman competition it was an area we need to get better in.
"It's never ideal when you concede 30 points, so we need to do that better.
"In terms of our connection, and not shooting out, we're all about connected line speed, and we've tried to work hard on that," he said.
Fullback Tom Banks said that connectivity was a by-product of the growing trust among the players who had enhanced their connection with the time spent together off the field during the altered schedule created by Covid-19 responses.
"I think defence comes down to attitude and trust, If you look at tight we are as a group, it relates on the field," he said.
"We're trusting a lot inside, and in the forward pack. We're doing a lot of training to make sure we're getting our systems right, and you can see it in the performances we put out," he said.
The Wallabies were hit hard after Richie Mo'unga's intercept try that saw the All Blacks follow up with two more tries.
But, the Australians wanted to rectify those issues at the weekend, in a game that was going to be won on good defence, he said.