Pride has manifested itself in many ways during the Rugby League World Cup, and the Kangaroos want to demonstrate their's through their defence.
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It hasn't been breached in 217 minutes at this tournament, not since Frenchman Mark Kheirallah broke through in Canberra three weeks ago.
That was one of just two tries Australia have conceded in their past nine World Cup matches, dating back to the 2013 tournament where they downed New Zealand 34-2 in the final.
Smith's team heads into Friday's semi-final off two straight shut outs, last weekend's 46-0 win over Samoa backing up the 34-0 pool triumph over Lebanon.
"This team now, we put a huge emphasis on our defence," Smith said.
"You look at a lot of other nations, you see the pride in their jersey and the way they play through different styles.
"They have war cries, they have hakas, but I'd like to think that you see the style of play that we play with and the way we defend, that's the pride in our jersey and the pride in our team. Hopefully we see much the same on Friday night.
"Only 10 points conceded throughout the whole tournament, that's quite a special effort. There hasn't really been too much said about it, but that's OK with us, we're quite happy with where we're at."
At the World Cup in 2013 under Tim Sheens they kept their opponents tryless in five of six games, a stretch of 404 minutes.
With 14 points conceded in their past nine World Cup games, they've allowed less than a penalty goal against them on average in that stretch.
"It's always a focus for us, that's how you win footy games," Meninga said.
"That's part of our KPIs, if you defend really well and you complete your sets, that's the game. If you want to take the complexities out of playing our great game, the simple thing is we complete our sets and we make our tackles, you're generally going to be successful.
"The Fiji side, they run really hard, they've got some great offloading abilities. We need to defend really well, so it's a bit of a focus again this week."
Four years ago Australia met Fiji in a World Cup semi-final and emerged 64-0 victors.
A similar scoreline for Australia against a much-improved Bati side looks unlikely this time around, but don't be surprised if Fiji fail to trouble the scorers again.
"If you have good defence, you're giving yourself every chance to win a game," Kangaroos five-eighth Michael Morgan said. "I think the last couple of weeks, having let in no points, it's become a challenge to match it each week.
"You want to be defending well and defending is an attitude, so if you're defending well, your attitude's right and you're working hard for each other and that's what we want to be doing.
"There's some loud voices out there in our team, so whenever a team gets a first test down on your line, you want to make sure you're defending and not leaking easy points. It's become a bit of a challenge to try and match it each week now."
