Wallabies captain Michael Hooper is imploring his troops to dig deep in a desperate attempt to restore hope in Australian rugby with a face-saving victory over the All Blacks on Saturday.

Had they not produced the biggest comeback in top-level Test history against Argentina in Salta earlier this month, the Wallabies would have finished last in the Rugby Championship.

The 38-13 and 40-12 losses to the All Blacks in August also ensured the Bledisloe Cup will stay in New Zealand for a 16th consecutive year.

Hooper is demanding improvement and says working off the ball for the full 80 minutes will be key in Yokohama, after collapsing in the second halves in Sydney and Auckland.

"There's a lot of good individual ball players out there, there's a lot of good people who can run the ball, tackle well," the flanker said after Friday's captain's run.

"But it's the periods in between those moments when you're getting set to allow our team to show its system, allow our team to play the shape it can and ultimately let the individuals do the work and finish the job.

"They're the key moments and that's something that the top teams have been doing very well for quite a while now, and the team we're playing tomorrow has clearly been the best at it for a while."

Hooper said the Wallabies had no trouble staying motivated for the trans-Tasman "dead rubber".

"There's always a heap of motivation playing for your country, there really is," he said.

"It's a shame that we're not playing for some silverware tomorrow or it's not back in Australia, but that's not the case.

"We're out there tomorrow to build as a team.

"It's been a narrow focus for us this week and we get our opportunity to play the No 1 team in the world.

"We're competitive blokes, we're in a high-performance environment, you want to be doing that, you want to be in these situations, you want to be out there when the lights are on."

Loose forward Pete Samu was the unlucky man to be left out of the23-man match-day squad after coach Michael Cheika opted for three backs and five forwards on his bench.

An Australian win would see the Wallabies rise up the World Rugby standings to fourth, while the All Blacks - incredibly - would drop to second behind Ireland in the extremely unlikely event they lose by more than 16 points.