Home turf but not much else going for unproven Wallabies
Run the rule across the teams and ask yourself where the Wallabies have an advantage for the opening Bledisloe Cup test.
Home ground: tick, fractious coach: tick, but not much more. There’s a posse of genuine class amongst the yellow bellies but outside Scott Sio, Adam Coleman, Michael Hooper, Will Genia, Michael Foley and Israel Folau they’re an unproven crew.
You can ask what about Stephen Moore and Kurtley Beale but that’s what they offer; question marks and uncertainty. Moore brings technical tightness and experience but has an ageing frame while Beale hasn’t played for months and has never begun a test at second five eighths.
Coach Michael Cheika did not have an abundance of choice or form after Super rugby but has blended promise with experience in a bid to pump some life and fire back into the Wallabies. He’s gone for the looseforward trio of Hooper, Ned Hanigan and Sean McMahon who fall into the potential category but no more.
McMahon and Beale and centre Samu Kerevi have been injured spectators rather than players for much of this season and that lack of big- game intensity will have its seams challenged.
Cheika has put the blowtorch on their fitness and used a succession of training camps to rework their combinations after the squad’s modest results in June.
All of that will help but international rugby is another level of interrogation especially against an All Black side with a strong pedigree in dealing with those demands. They’ve endured their recent blip against the Lions with questions about their ability to reassert their ranking at the top of the global rugby order.
When you measure their pack, only Liam Squire and Codie Taylor are fresh to nailing down this type of assignment while Aaron Smith, Beauden Barrett, Ryan Crotty and Ben Smith have sustained pedigree to guide and direct their teammates.
The All Blacks have the vastly experienced Kieran Read to captain their approach with Ben Smith, Sam Cane and Sam Whitelock all lieutenants who can bring their wisdom to the issues which ebb and flow in every test match.
Hooper is the new Wallaby skipper, a follow- me leader whose style was lost on his Waratahs teammates but who is tasked with directing the international recovery plan with Moore and Will Genia sitting in advisory roles.
We have a fair idea how the All Blacks will attack and perform their tasks with a thrill about the threats Damian McKenzie and Rieko Ioane offer and equal interest in the defensive wall the visitors bring to create more heat on their hosts. That scalding intensity has been simmering and now it’s time to lift the lid.
Coach Michael Cheika did not have an abundance of choice or form after Super rugby.