The All Blacks go into their clash with the Wallabies in Dunedin today as overwhelming favorites despite losing influential captain Richie McCaw and enterprising wing Cory Jane on the eve of the Test.
The double injury blow forced a late reshuffle for the reigning world champions, including the promotion of utility back Charles Piutau to the starting side for the first time.
However, the odds remain heavily in the All Blacks’ favor after they disposed of the Wallabies twice already this year — winning 47-29 in Sydney and then 27-16 in Wellington as they sailed through the Rugby Championship unbeaten.
Photo: AFP
New Zealand betting agency TAB kept the All Blacks at a shade over even money, while the Wallabies were at 6-1 after it was announced yesterday that McCaw was ruled out with a tight calf and Jane had tweaked a hamstring.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said McCaw’s injury was not serious.
“We could have played him, but the risk and reward wasn’t worth it so we haven’t,” he said.
“C.J. [Jane] has obviously done a grade one hamstring near the end of training. We thought he may be OK in the morning, but he pulled up no good,” Hansen added.
Wallabies captain James Horwill believes the loss of McCaw will have little impact on the All Blacks.
“Obviously the experience of Richie is a loss for any team, 120 Tests, it’s hard to replicate that experience, but Sam Cane’s been doing a great job,” Horwill said, referring to the man replacing the New Zealand veteran.
With nothing at stake in the match — the All Blacks are 2-0 up in the best-of-three Bledisloe Cup Tests between the trans-Tasman rivals — both sides have preached the same message of needing to back up their last performance.
The All Blacks are looking to reproduce the form that saw them beat South Africa 38-27 two weeks ago to claim the Rugby Championship with a performance dubbed by the New Zealand media “as one of the all-time greats.”
Australia, after a woeful year, want a repeat of the form they showed when trouncing Argentina 54-17 in a match to avoid the Rugby Championship wooden spoon.
If the All Blacks offer the Wallabies an area to exploit it would be out wide, with the raw paring of Piutau and Ben Smith.
Smith’s reputation as a try-scoring wing will count for little as he moves in one place to the more defensive center role in place of Conrad Smith, who is taking an extended break from the game.
Piutau, although rated as a utility, has established his reputation as a counterattacking fullback.
The loss of three-time world player of the year McCaw sees the elevation of Cane, who has already shown this year he is a capable openside flanker at Test level.
A target for the All Blacks, apart from maintaining their unbeaten record this year, is to win their 30th consecutive Test on home soil, while the Wallabies have to go back 12 years to when they last beat the All Blacks in New Zealand.
The last of their rare victories anywhere over the All Blacks was 25-20 in Brisbane two years ago and Rob Simmons, Horwill’s locking partner, believes it is time for a change.
“I get filthy, I hate losing. They’re a good team, but you get pretty down. It’s something I want to change, that’s for sure,” he said.
In the 2011 win, center pairing Will Genia and Quade Cooper played an instrumental role in steering the side around the park and they will need to recapture that form for the Wallabies to have a realistic chance.
The Wallabies also need to overcome their defensive and handling lapses, but Hansen denied his team would be taking them lightly.
“We respect the Australians immensely,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier