Coach Michael Cheika says his NSW Waratahs won’t panic after their stunning Super Rugby opening round loss to Western Force, and past experiences have proven their ability to bounce back from adversity.

The defending champions looked a pale shadow of the all-conquering side that surged to the title, as they started with a 25-13 home loss.

Cheika said his players lacked urgency and weren’t angry enough and blamed himself for getting their preparation wrong.

He only has a short turnaround to eliminate problems, with a fixture against the Rebels in Melbourne looming on Friday.

“The one thing I’ll always do with this team is back them to bounce back,” Cheika said.

“We are definitely a team that knows how to get back up, we’ve been knocked down several times.

“We’ve been in many holes over the last couple of years and I know that we’ve got players that are passionate enough to say right `I know what I need to fix now and I know what I need to amend from that game to the next game.”

Cheika said it was too early to make predictions about the outcome of the Australian conference based on one round.

He pointed to last season as to how quickly fortunes can change.

“There’s a lot of games to go,” Cheika said.”

“Halfway through last season after eight games, you wouldn’t have picked up that we would have finished first.

“There’s things to unfold still ahead. There’s certainly not going to be any panic or anything like that.

“What there’s going to be is improvement and a focus on improving really really well between now and Friday.”

He only has to then to identify and fix their issues before playing the Rebels in Melbourne.

A steady scrum apart, one of the few good aspects of the Waratahs performance was the effort of giant Wallabies lock, Will Skelton.

“He ran hard, ran straight, got over the gain line well, laid the ball back,” Cheika said of Skelton.

“Anything good we did was usually off the back of what he did in the inside section.

“(He played), 80 minutes as well.”