TAULUPE Faletau is confident that Wales have the mental toughness to turn the tables on Australia and top their World Cup group of death.

Warren Gatland’s reign has been littered with sob stories against the Wallabies, who will attempt to make it 11 wins on the spin when the teams meet at Twickenham today (kick-off 4.45pm).

The last five of those losses have been by under a score but Newport Gwent Dragons number eight Faletau says Wales have developed a steely edge in recent times.

Since being pipped by the Aussies in Cardiff last November they have beaten South Africa, France, Ireland (twice), Scotland and most recently England in tense thrillers.

Faletau believes that big-game nerve, plus a bit of luck, can see Wales win Pool A when many pundits had been tipping them to be packing their bags.

“Australia’s record speaks for itself and it’s going to be tough,” said the back row forward from Pontypool. “They’ve always been good games to watch but unfortunately we’ve always been second best.

“It’s been so close, so often and it could go either way on the day. We don’t have a mental block against them, we just need the bounce of the ball to go our way this time and we have shown that we’ve learnt how to win tight games over the past year, so that’s encouraging.”

If Wales win then they would play Scotland or Japan rather than South Africa in the quarter-finals at Twickenham as well as avoiding New Zealand’s half of the draw.

“It’s important to win but more just to keep the momentum and keep the ball rolling rather than for the draw,” said Faletau, who has only beaten the Aussies in a Lions jersey.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position and we’re delighted to have made the quarter-finals from such a hard group but we won’t be thinking about who we could play or what half we are in.

“It would be dangerous to think like that because all quarter-finals are one-off games and we will need to play well whoever we face.”