"These girls ever, you know, they have a professional head and amateur heart," the forwards' coach said.

"They do all this for love. You know, they're the Wallabies of the 70s and 80s.

"Yeah, they go to work. They study, you know, they live with mom and dad and play rugby.

"For them to show up and think 'Oh, we're just making up the numbers' is not good enough. They believe they're going to change. I believe we're going to change.

"Why wouldn't we."

It's reminiscent of the passion and hardship that still exists in all walks of female sport.

But whether it's enough to inspire immediate change in the form of a first win over the Black Ferns in 25 years...well, that's a different matter.

"We’re not making up the numbers, it’s not an exhibition game," Tink continued.

"You talk to these girls, they’re playing for their country and the emotion that’s gone into that, through Japan and this morning we had to tell a few girls they wouldn’t be in the 23.

"They were really upset because it means a lot to them."

As far as a gameplan, Tink believes the Super W tactics may be the Wallaroos' saviour.

"We want top quality ball in attack and we really need to stay in the fight there," he said.

"Defensively we need to disrupt some of the ball you know, they launch off a really good ball, their nine is a great player and if we can disrupt some of the set-post ball at the source, it'll give our offense a really good chance to get off the lawn and go whack.

"No doubt, we've been very fortunate that the Super W coaches have had a bit of an emphasis on that as well. So they've been going since November last year.

"Our understanding of the breakdown on the various roles across the women's code has improved and we're pretty confident we will do a good job there.

"There's always threats from New Zealand at the breakdown, but you never know if we get there first."