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Preview: Australia v South Africa

Friday 18th July 2008

Head to head: Wycliff Palu and Pierre Spies

An Australian journalist this week was misguided enough to ask whether Peter de Villiers was still ruminating on the Craig Dowd incident in New Zealand last week.

De Villiers leaned forward, scowled, flexed his finest headmaster moustache and said: "You're at the wrong press conference at the wrong time. Aren't there any fresh highlights or something new happening in Australia?"

A perfect riposte. But to be honest, the journalist in question would have also been perfectly entitled to scowl back and say: "Well... no!"

It's been a blessedly quiet build-up to this Tri-Nations clash. Australians are patiently awaiting the competitive start of Robbie Deans' tenure, and South Africans are daring to believe that they may be about to enter the home half of their Tri-Nations with two wins out of three already racked up. Whether the silence from SA is quiet confidence or fear of egg on face is not all that clear, but after last weeks' multiple rounds of heckling it's nice to get back to the rugby.

Indications from both sides are that this is set to be an 'open' game. Whether that means good quality or not will only be proven in the execution - we've seen a few games under the increased ELV pace go wrong because the hands are not moving fast enough.

Certainly the visitors appear not to be interested in kicking. Schalk Brits' inclusion has been forced upon De Villiers, but Pierre Spies' has not, and neither has Conrad Jantjes'. Both are go-forward players, and both have taken the place of players who are more solid.

Deans' teams are rarely interested in kicking at all unless it is out of deep defence or high and wide for a winger to pounce upon and score, and his general mantra for the week was summed up in a local paper headline on Friday: Attack or perish.

The Boks have the edge in the tight five - it is no more than an edge despite what everybody still thinks about the Wallaby scrum - and the indications from the five-forward bench are that the starting tight five will be told to cram an 80-minute display into 60 minutes before the reinforcements are brought on to finish the job off.

At scrum-half, Luke Burgess is still green, and he will find his pack under far more pressure than that to which he has seen them so far in his international career. It will be interesting to see if he can distribute as well under that pressure as he did against France.

Fly-half will be intriguing. Berrick Barnes offers a pressure-relieving buffer for Matt Giteau with his boot and distribution, but he will lose a head-on ball-in-hand battle with Jean de Villiers. In that sense, the Wallabies are limited. The huge South African back row is free to concentrate on shackling Giteau and De Villiers can restrict Barnes, while Australia's equally huge back row has the physical running threats of both Butch James and De Villiers to contain.

Outside, Stirling Mortlock might have the edge on Frans Steyn through experience if nothing else, but in the back three South Africa have a significant edge. JP Pietersen proved last week he is now physically up to the challenge that Lote Tuqiri might pose, and Bryan Habana is better than Peter Hynes. Adam Ashley-Cooper does not offer the counter-attacking flair that Conrad Jantjes does, although his positioning is better.

But it is the back row that offers the most fascinating and game-turning battle. Both sides have three strong runners and one specialist ball-pilferer. The match might be of similar styles: punch punch punch with the runners and then wide wide wide to the space. In defence, the effectiveness will be judged on the ability to keep the opposition behind the gain-line - again, you feel South Africa have the edge there, and it will allow Schalk Burger to steal more ball. When they have it, the lightweight Australian 10-12 is an area for the Bok runners to target, and it may leave the Wallaby back row with too much to do.

The problem for Australia is that of having effective options. You look down their team at all the possible attacking threats and then remember how the Boks closed the space up last week. Then you do the same for the Boks and see weaknesses in gold where there are none in green. Robbie Deans has worked tactical miracles before, and his hour has come once more.

Perth is the only Australian city in which South Africa have won since 1993. There is a huge colony of South African ex-pats there - now over 20,000 people - and the influence of them upon Test matches there has had one local newspaper describing Subiaco Oval as 'neutral territory'. So much for home advantage in the Tri-Nations.

The match is on the day after Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday - for which the Boks held a party on Friday. As long as the orange juice doesn't leave them with a hangover, it's set up to be South Africa's day.

Ones to watch:

For Australia: George Smith becomes the most-capped Wallaby forward of all time on Saturday. His mission: to stop the Boks' continuity as much as possible. Without his disruption, the Boks will march on.

For South Africa: Conrad Jantjes may well end up the recipient of a few kicks if the Boks can shackle Giteau and Barnes effectively. Percy Montgomery was picked to keep the All Blacks at bay, but Jantjes is picked to get the Boks into Wallaby territory. If Jantjes can show his counter-attacking skills to the same effect as he did in Wellington a fortnight ago, the Wallabies will be thinking twice about kicking too.

Head-to-head: Wycliff Palu v Pierre Spies brings together two of world rugby's most destructive runners, and with little secret being made of the coaches' intent to get on the front foot first and attack later, these two will be having quite a bash-off.

Recent results:

2007 Australia won 25-17 in Sydney
2007 South Africa won 22-19 in Cape Town
2006 South Africa won 24-16 in Jo'burg
2006 Australia won 20-18 in Sydney
2006 Australia won 49-0 in Brisbane
2005 South Africa won 22-19 in Perth
2005 South Africa won 22-16 in Pretoria
2005 South Africa won 33-20 in Jo'burg
2005 Australia won 30-12 in Sydney
2004 South Africa won 23-19 in Durban
2004 Australia won 30-26 in Perth
2003 Australia won 29-9 in Brisbane
2003 South Africa won 26-22 in Cape Town
2002 South Africa won 33-31 in Jo'burg
2002 Australia won 38-27 in Brisbane

Prediction: It's going to take a little more time for Deans to cook Australia to a turn. South Africa by 8 points.

The teams:

Australia: 15 Adam Ashley-Cooper, 14 Peter Hynes, 13 Stirling Mortlock (c), 12 Berrick Barnes, 11 Lote Tuqiri, 10 Matt Giteau, 9 Luke Burgess, 8 Wycliff Palu, 7 George Smith, 6 Rocky Elsom, 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 James Horwill, 3 Al Baxter, 2 Stephen Moore, 1 Benn Robinson.
Replacements: 16 Tatafu Polota-Nau, 17 Matt Dunning, 18 Hugh McMeniman, 19 Phil Waugh, 20 Sam Cordingley, 21 Ryan Cross, 22 Drew Mitchell.

South Africa: 15 Conrad Jantjes, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Francois Steyn, 12 Jean de Villiers, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Butch James, 9 Enrico Januarie, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Juan Smith, 6 Schalk Burger, 5 Victor Matfield (c), 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 CJ van der Linde, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Gurthro Steenkamp.
Replacements: 16 Adriaan Strauss, 17 Tendai Mtawarira, 18 Brian Mujati, 19 Andries Bekker, 20 Ryan Kankowski, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Peter Grant.

Date: Saturday, July 19
Venue: Subiaco Stadium, Perth
Kick-off: 18:.05 (11:05 BST)
Weather: Clear, stiff southerly breeze fading as the day goes on, 12�C
Referee: Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)
Touch judges: Lyndon Bray (New Zealand), Chris Pollock (New Zealand)
Television match official: Garrat Newman (New Zealand)
Assessor: Steve Hilditch (New Zealand)

By Danny Stephens