IN the last two Tests, Michael Cheika has made significant, unforeseen changes to his Wallabies side.

But don’t confuse Cheika’s sudden experimental streak with desperation, despite the Wallabies having won just two of their last eight Tests and falling to five on the world rankings.

Indeed, according to Wallabies legend David Campese, the surprise changes in the crucial fly-half and fullback spots are a wise move to improve the squad’s depth and serve as a warning shot to guard against complacency.

“I don’t think Cheika’s panicking,” Campese told foxsports.com.au.

“The whole idea about a position is you’ve got to fight for your place.

“At the moment, some of the guys aren’t fighting because there’s no competition, so that’s why we need a structure in our country where we all play roughly the same style of rugby.

“Therefore, you can see the guys are adapting pretty well, and the guys that want to go further and want to play for Australia.”

Campese’s comments come after Israel Folau — the only Australian to win the John Eales Medal three times — became the second big name in as many weeks to be moved from their preferred position.

After missing the last two Tests through injury, Folau was named on the right wing with Haylett-Petty holding his place in the No 15 jersey.

Campese, Australia’s all-time leading Test try scorer and greatest ever winger, backed that mix and believed it would make the Wallabies a potent attacking threat against Argentina on Saturday.

“You miss a Test and the guys perform well,” Campese said of Folau.

“Haylett-Petty played well last week.

“Combination wise, he’s (Cheika) probably trying to fit him into the team the way it’s been playing instead of having to shuffle the players around all the time.

“Put Folau in a different position and see how he goes.

“At least Folau’s a finisher.

“If the attack comes down the right side of the field, now you’ve Kurtley (Beale) and Folau, two dangerous players, so the opposition will be under a bit more pressure to find out who’s actually going to get the ball.

“That’s the way Australian backlines have always played — it’s about keeping you guessing.

“Where you’re going to go, which angles are you running and if you can get two or three touches on the ball in the movement that makes it a lot easier and it creates more opportunities.”

Meanwhile, Campese backed the decision to drop Bernard Foley to the bench and give Beale an extended run at in the chief playmaking position.

“You can’t go into a World Cup with one No 10,” said Campese, who won the World Cup in 1991.

“Bernard Foley’s been there for years.

“Look, he’s been a great No 10 but there’s been no pressure on him.

“I don’t think he’s played his best rugby this year because there’s been no other No 10 in Australia that’s putting pressure on him saying: ‘mate, if you don’t play well, I’m going to knock you off.’

“If you look at (All Black No 10) Beauden Barrett — he’s under a lot of pressure because Richie Mo’unga’s playing very well, and last week they gave him a Test so it brings the best out of players as well.

“Beauden Barrett came back and he knew he had to play well to get that position.

“When you’ve got competition it’s good for you because it makes you want to play well all the time.

“If you haven’t got any competition, sometimes you are a bit lazy, you think things are going to happen, you don’t really follow the ball as much instead of having that hunger, knowing that I have to make sure that Cheik knows that I’m playing well because if I don’t I’m going to be on the bench.

“So the more competition you’ve got, the more guys are on edge, then they’ll go looking for work and I think that’s what Cheik’s trying to do.

“He’s trying to get for the World Cup three No 10s — all good players.

“At the moment you’ve got someone coming off the bench who’s a great No 10 as well.

“It makes you realise that every performance you’ve got to make sure you deliver.”

But he added that the Wallabies needed to work harder and provide Beale more options in attack.

“When you’ve got someone who’s a bit unpredictable like Kurtley, the opposition aren’t sure what’s going to happen,” Campese said.

“We saw against the South Africans, there were a lot of opportunities there but what we’ve got to try and get to is the guys outside him (Beale) have got to start giving him options.

“When Kurtley runs on the angles, the guys have got to try and give him an option like running straight or try to run into space so he can pass the ball to them.

“At the moment, we’re still waiting for him to do the work and the other guys are waiting for him to do something for them.

“We were told ‘as soon as someone runs across, runs straight.’

“The way to get the opposition to come out of the line is to do a switch or a dummy switch, or a loop, when you do those sort of things right on the opposition defensive line, someone’s going to fall for it and the other guys just running — they look at where they’re running instead of watching the ball.

“What’s also important is you don’t wait for Kurtley to give you the ball.

“If you want the ball, you call.

“And normally when you call, you get the ball.

“At the moment, we’re all waiting for the guy with the ball to do something for us.

“We’ve got to change the mindset now and if you’re running on the line and you see a gap and you want it, you say ‘now, give it to me.’

“That guy’s got to react.

“But that just comes with confidence, it comes with team work and it comes with the more you get to play together you get that trust, and you can see the Wallabies are still are a way off because we change players, different provinces play different styles of rugby instead of actually trying to get these guys now to keep on hammering away and trying different things.”

Campese implored Australia’s coaches to let their players fail, too.

“We were fortunate to play in that era where the coaches allowed us to try things,” Campese said.

“And the most important thing is, yes, we failed, but we kept on trying and I think that’s the problem these days with coaches.

“‘If you do that again ‘you’re off,’ instead of saying ‘mate, that’s very good.’

“We need kids and players to try things because if you don’t try, you don’t know how good you can be.”