New Zealand and Australia will play an unprecedented Bledisloe Cup Test match on neutral ground today, hoping to break the Asian market and lay the foundations for successful European tours.
The teams will ditch more than a century of tradition as they wind down this year’s hostilities at a packed Hong Kong Stadium and in front of a TV audience of millions.
The match is a prelude to multi-stop trips to Europe, with New Zealand talking up a five-nation Grand Slam and Australia hoping to reverse a dismal northern hemisphere record.
Both sides have bristled at suggestions the Hong Kong Test is approaching exhibition status, after Cup holders New Zealand took an unbeatable 2-1 series lead last month.
“Who said it was a dead rubber?” Australia coach Robbie Deans snarled. “There will be passion, there will be intensity. There’s no love lost between these two teams.”
Deans will be desperate to put one over on his opposite number and fellow New Zealander Graham Henry, who beat off his bid for the All Blacks job despite overseeing a bitterly disappointing World Cup last year.
Australia are also keen to erase memories of last month’s match in Brisbane, when New Zealand came from behind to seal both the Bledisloe Cup and the Tri-Nations title.
But with Australian players taking a boat trip around Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor and the All Blacks teaching local children the haka, the build-up has been relaxed.
Rebuilding work continues in the wake of last year’s World Cup and the teams have an unfamiliar look to match the unusual surroundings.
Pre-match talk has been dominated by the surprise selection of superstar All Blacks fly-half Dan Carter at inside center, where he will face Australia’s toughest midfield pairing. Carter’s understudy Stephen Donald gets his chance at fly-half.
Test veteran Mils Muliaina is out after the birth this week of his son Max, leaving Isaia Toeava to fill in at full-back, while Hosea Gear makes his debut on the wing.
Australia’s Deans has made five changes, most forced by injury, and has courted controversy by lining up hard-hitters Stirling Mortlock and Ryan Cross directly opposite Carter.
Injured winger Lote Tuqiri is replaced by Drew Mitchell, while Richard Brown replaces Wycliff Palu at No. 8.
Luke Burgess is preferred at scrum-half over Sam Cordingley, while flanker Dean Mumm and second row Mark Chisholm replace Hugh McMeniman and James Horwill.
Australia and New Zealand have only played once outside their two countries, in the semi-finals of the 1991 World Cup in Dublin, when the Wallabies won 16-6.
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