The Wallabies believe they have found a chink in the mighty All Blacks they can exploit in their Tri-Nations rugby Tests in Melbourne today.
Luke McAlister has been thrust into the hot seat in a New Zealand backline reshuffle after yesterday's withdrawal of fullback Leon MacDonald with a groin injury at training.
Mils Muliaina shifts to fullback with ball-playing Aaron Mauger promoted off the reserves' bench to inside-center and McAlister moving to an unaccustomed outside-center.
Wallabies' captain and outside-center Stirling Mortlock identified it as a potential defensive weakness in the New Zealand backline, much like that which he helped exploit in Australia's shock 2003 World Cup semi-final defeat of the Kiwis.
"Defensively, 13 [outside-center] is quite different to 12 [inside-center], so hopefully if we do our job well we can test him out there, but I'm sure he's going to expect that anyway," Mortlock told a press conference yesterday.
"Certainly having to play at 13 in a position that's slightly foreign to him gives us an opportunity to go through," he said. "It would be amiss of us if we didn't test out a guy who's probably having his first game at 13."
"It's a bit of a risk, I guess, but they have a huge amount of gains to be made in attack, having three ball players at 10, 12 and 13 that opens up a huge amount of opportunities for them," Mortlock said.
Parallels have been made about New Zealand's use of MacDonald out of position at No.13 at the last World Cup, when a Mortlock intercept try gave Australia the impetus for a stunning 22-10 win that propelled the Wallabies into the final against England in Sydney.
"In the [2003] World Cup we managed to find out Leon [MacDonald] at 13 a number of times," Mortlock said.
Mortlock said this was a game the Wallabies were targeting to assess their preparation for September's World Cup in France.
"We've felt that last year we improved through the three matches we played against the All Blacks, but obviously we didn't get the result in any of those matches," he said. "We go into this match with confidence knowing that if we play well we can get a result and we're hopeful of doing that."
"New Zealand have been that far ahead of everybody else internationally over the last couple of years that realistically the teams below them have had a lot more room left for improvement," he said.
"We were always aware that we have a lot of improvement left in us and in between last year and this year we've shown that," Mortlock said.
All Blacks' coach Graham Henry said he was more disappointed for MacDonald than concerned about the overall disruption to his team.
"I feel for Leon, he's in the best nick of his life and he was really looking forward to the game and this happens and it's going to put him back four weeks probably," Henry told a press conference yesterday.
The backline switch means that for the 22nd consecutive Test the All Blacks will be fielding a different midfield combination.
"Luke played at No.13 in the first half against Canada a couple of weeks ago and he's trained there for that particular game," Henry said. "He's a versatile player, it's a big ask for him, but he'll do his best."
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