Australia have turned back the clock in the hope of making a winning start to a Rugby Championship campaign for the first time in the expanded competition when they meet a patched up South Africa side at Lang Park in Brisbane tomorrow.
The Wallabies last won their opening match of the southern-hemisphere tournament when they claimed the final Tri-Nations title in 2011, a similar truncated tournament to this one as it also fell in a World Cup year.
Coach Michael Cheika has turned to the driving force behind that campaign, the halfback partnership of Will Genia and Quade Cooper, to fire a backline who have failed to score more than two tries in any of their past eight meetings with South Africa.
Photo: EPA
Matt Giteau’s international exile was already a year old when the Wallabies won that Tri-Nations and, after an eligibility rule change, he returns from France to offer the benefit of his experience outside Cooper in the No. 12 shirt.
Whatever quality there is in the Wallabies backline, both sides know that they will be unable to show off their skills if Genia does not get clean, quick ball in the right parts of the pitch.
Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer, whose squad has been ravaged by injury, is clearly of the opinion that the breakdown will decide the contest and has picked his back row accordingly.
In the absence of injured No. 8 Duane Vermeulen, Meyer has recalled Schalk Burger to join Marcell Coetzee and Francois Louw in a mobile but combative loose-forward unit.
Cheika chose Michael Hooper at openside flanker and benched David Pocock, whose ball-poaching performance against the Springboks in the quarter-finals of the 2011 World Cup is the stuff of legend.
There is at least one throwback element to the Springboks side, with 38-year-old lock Victor Matfield captaining the team in his 122nd Test while Jean de Villiers continues his recovery from injury.
Matfield and Eben Etzebeth will be out to make the lineout the usual launch-pad of the Springbok attack and the selection in the Australia second row of Will Skelton, who is too heavy to lift, should help them in that endeavor.
Skelton, who weighs about 140kg, has been included for his ball-running skills and big hits in defense, not to mention his proven skill at stopping rolling mauls.
Cheika will be hoping Giteau’s game management means Australia will be playing as much of the match as possible at the other end of the pitch where his backs can do the most damage.
Australia, at sixth in the world rankings after losing seven of their 14 Tests last year, will at the least hope to avoid the 38-12 beating they suffered the last time the sides met at Lang Park.
That was South Africa’s first victory in Brisbane and Meyer will be delighted if his injury-depleted side can produce a similar defensive effort and dominate the scrum in the same way they did two years ago.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Marcus Rashford’s first goals for Aston Villa on Sunday inspired a 3-0 win against Preston North End that sent his side into the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time in 10 years. Rashford struck twice in the second half at Deepdale to end Preston’s stubborn resistance before Jacob Ramsey wrapped up Villa’s long-awaited return to the last four. Villa are to face Crystal Palace — 3-0 winners at Fulham on Saturday — in the semi-finals at Wembley Stadium in London. Revitalized since joining Villa on loan from Manchester United during the January transfer window, Rashford is beginning to show the form that
RSS