The 47-year-old refused to discuss Kurtley Beale's upcoming disciplinary hearing but spoke at length on a number of issues.
He expressed his desire to make Wallabies fans proud of their team again, his ability to juggle his Waratahs commitments, his relationship with Pulver and the challenges of taking over three days out from the Spring tour and 11 months out from the World Cup.
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I'll do youse proud, I promise
"I just want everyone to know that I'll be doing my best and that's the only thing that I can guarantee, that I'll be doing my best to make sure the Australian team's playing in a way that everyone in Australia is proud of," Cheika said. "... I suppose it would be honest to say that I would never have imagined I'd be in this situation, it's a real honour. I never got to play for the Wallabies so to have the opportunity to coach the Australian team and have that responsibility on behalf of Australian rugby supporters is touching for me and it inspires me to do the very best that I can all the time and be top class, because that's what that position deserves."
Don't ask me about Kurtley Beale
Beale will front a Code of Conduct hearing on Friday night over the alleged lewd text messages he sent to team-mates about former Wallabies Business Manager Di Patston. If found guilty Beale's career in Australian rugby will be over. Cheika and Beale are particularly close but the new coach was careful not to rock the boat on Wednesday.
"I won't be answering any questions on that today because there's no way that I want to prejudice what's going to happen with Kurtley on Friday," he said.
It's not a rescue job but we need to be better
The only coach to win a European Cup and Super Rugby titles doesn't believe he needs to pull off another rescue mission after turning things around at Leinster and the Waratahs, but he says the Wallabies can and must improve.
"I don't think it's a rescue job whatsoever and I think that probably a few of the things that need to be dealt with is just everyone needs to clear their heads a little bit and remember what we're here to do. I think (we need to) focus a bit more on the identity. How we're playing the game, how do we want our supporters to see us? Our traditional way of playing the game, not just running rugby but that smart, clever style of play that has allowed us to compete perhaps against the teams that have bigger packs or whatever that may be. "...It's all well and good to say, 'we had a great game that other night against the All Blacks, even though we didn't get a win', but we've got to play like that every week as the standard so that then when we need to go up a level we can try and do that."
Coaching the Waratahs next season is actually a positive
The decision to allow Cheika to coach the Waratahs in 2015 before focussing fully on the Wallabies from June has raised eyebrows. But Cheika feels it will actually help stop the interstate squabbling that has crippled Australian rugby for years.
"I actually think it can be a real example because if I'm capable, which I believe I am, of really dividing those two jobs," he said. So when I'm with the Waratahs encouraging those guys to get stuck into the same guys that I'm then going to be encouraging to get stuck into someone else when we come together. If I can show that example, and I'm genuine about it, and the players will know if I'm genuine about it, then we can really actually get something from that.
I'm not going to re-invent the wheel - yet
The coach insists he won't make wholesale changes for the five-game Spring tour. The squad flies out on Friday an faces a gruelling schedule against the Barbarians, Wales, France, Ireland and England.
"It's going to be interesting, that's for sure on the Spring tour. I'll be honest, I wasn't even sure where we were going. I knew we were going to Ireland when a lot of the Leinster players starting sending me text messages just this morning saying, 'looks like we're going to be battling again'. I think it's a relatively simple process, we're not going to change too much obviously. We're going to try and talk about a few things around getting our environment right. We're going to focus on quality while we're over there. I'm going to get to know the players, because obviously I know a lot of the Waratahs players but I've got to spend time with players from the other teams to get to know who they are, what they're good at and what they believe they're good at."
No bold predictions but 'we'll be right'
Cheika famously declared the Waratahs were aiming for a top two finish before the 2014 Super Rugby season. They finished first and won their maiden title. Asked if the Wallabies can make the World Cup final next October, Cheika didn't bite but quipped, 'we'll be right' when it was suggested he doesn't have enough time to turn things around before the World Cup.
"I think one of my Kiwi colleagues told me once that, 'You Aussies always talk yourselves up at that moment'," he said. So I think our thing's about being clear about who we are and how we're going to play from a goal point of view. It's about hard work, physicality and create our style of play exactly how we want our supporters to see us. And if we do that hopefully the results will come from that."