McMahon gets call

SEAN McMahon would be rated too small to be a South African No.8, yet he is the perfect fit for the Wallabies.

Coach Michael Cheika has settled on the full-throttle backrower for Sunday morning’s mission (1.05am AEST) to topple the Springboks for the first time at their Pretoria stronghold of Loftus Versfeld.

Replacing the injured David Pocock, who posted a gruesome photo on Instagram of his hand surgery this week, was never going to be a likefor-like swap.

It is about reorganising the skills of the backrow to tackle a ferocious physical backlash from the cornered Springboks.

We have seen this ambush scenario before. Boks beaten on the road, slammed by the media, eyeball-rolling desperation, pride on the line, revenge against the Wallabies.

It is a snake pit, especially at Loftus Versfeld, where Cheika is confident the combative McMahon will be well suited.

“He’s obviously got the strong ball-carrying game and it’s nice for us to add that into the backrow,” Cheika said.

In this land of giants, they have cut the bigger body shapes of Duane Vermeulen, Pierre Spies and Joe van Niekerk from concrete to dominate from No.8 over the past 15 years.

“Sean’s not as tall as your traditional No.8s but he’s starting to get some of the qualities with his carries and strong tackling,” Cheika said.

“I just think he’s done a lot of work on his jump to perform well in the lineout as well.

“I’m going to enjoy watching him play because the fastgame, hard-ground conditions are going to suit him.

“There are other configurations we could have gone with but this was always on our minds.”

If there needed to be a selection clincher ahead of rookie Lopeti Timani, it was McMahon’s huge gallop in Perth through three Argentinian tacklers to set up the key Will Genia try.

It will be a McMahon-Michael Hooper-Dean Mumm starting backrow.

The Wallabies have worked too hard to repair their lineout with Mumm to dilute it, even though Scott Fardy seems such a good fit against the Boks.