The Bledisloe Cup (dead rubber if we lose)
Saturday, 27 October, 2018
Yokohama, Japan
Kick-off: 15:00 | 17:00 AEDT | 19:00 NZDT



Nissan Stadium (venue for RWC2019 final)


Officials:
Referee: Romain Poite (France)
AR1: Marius van der Westhuizen (South Africa)
AR2: Rasta Rasivhenge (South Africa)
TMO: Marius Jonker (South Africa)

All Blacks


World Ranking: 1

Coach: Shag


Captain: Kieran Read


Team
15. Damian McKenzie, 14. Ben Smith, 13. Ryan Crotty, 12. Sonny Bill Williams, 11. Rieko Ioane, 10. Beauden Barrett, 9. TJ Perenara, 8. Kieran Read ©, 7. Ardie Savea, 6. Liam Squire, 5. Scott Barrett, 4. Sam Whitelock, 3. Owen Franks, 2. Codie Taylor, 1. Joe Moody.

Reserves: 16. Nathan Harris, 17. Karl Tu'inukuafe, 18. Nepo Laulala, 19. Brodie Retallick, 20. Matt Todd, 21. Aaron Smith, 22. Richie Mo'unga, 23. Anton Lienert-Brown.


Wallabies


World Ranking: 7

Coach: Checks


Captain: Hoops


Team
15-1: Dane Haylett-Petty, Sefa Naivalu, Israel Folau, Kurtley Beale, Marika Koroibete, Bernard Foley, Will Genia, David Pocock, Michael Hooper, Ned Hanigan, Rob Simmons, Izack Rodda, Allan Alaalatoa, Folau Fainga’a, Scott Sio

Reserves: Tolu Latu, Sekope Kepu, Taniela Tupou, Rory Arnold, Jack Dempsey, Pete Samu, Nick Phipps, Samu Kerevi, Tom Banks


History:
Played: 163
All Blacks: 113
Wallabies: 43
Drawn: 7

Bit of a slide, but not surprised after their recent performances.

Just reinforces how much of a lock this game is for Australia. Beauty.

Ranking 7 now

Yeah, we are 7, but playing the 5th ranked team isn't as worrying as if we were playing the 1st ranked team. What a lock!

Just in case you'd missed Sensible Stephen's sensible reference, Kiwias...

To be fair, NZ are playing their "B" team.

Who are actually ranked 5.

This will be a 3-nil series!

I defy anyone to pick the starting XV for the ABs' match one week later against Japan.

fudge me sideways, let's just get this over with....

If we field anything other than other than our near best lineup we'll get smoked.

Fixed

Apparently its camp normal at camp Wallaby, no coaching help or changes needed according to the half time maestro.
We just don't need this game to see more of the same

Either way I just dont care much about this rivalry anymore. A bit sad but there you go.

Rest Whitelock for the two Japanese games. We are flogging him to death.

You know what will happen. We will win this. Marto will scream bring on the world cup, and rolling into 2019 we will be out in the quarters/semis.

Is Retallick expected back for this game?

If the ABs had any balls they'd pick DMac at 10.

Think he’s close now but his wife just had a baby a few days ago.

Probably better to give this one a miss and let him stay home (and play for Hawkes Bay in the Championship ).

So if we rest Whitelock, our locks become SBarrett and Tuipolotu starting, and one of our n00b 5/6s on the bench?

This is where there's about 51 players going over in the extended squad right?

Not sure if I would go as far as calling Romano a n00b.

WTF. You guys going to play a completely different 15 in every match or what?

How old is that Picture?

If Romano is in the picture I'm a little more sanguine about Whitelock getting the day off.

Well, lets just say it only just sneaks into this century...

I reckon we get half the team and the coaches steamed, so they miss their plane. Then we say, 'hey bros, we've only got 10 blokes can you lend us a few of yours? Otherwise we'll just got down to the pub.'

f**king master plan that is.

I think it is the last time the Wobblies got that close to the Bled, putting it at perhaps 2002.

There will be a bunch of players in the squad for the Japan match that you will likely never have heard of.

I don't know, i watched most NZ super rugby games, unless you pick dudes from your Mitre 10 cup or whatever.

Figuratively speaking.

I would expect Dane Coles on the bench

Will they rush him back for the Bled match or wait till the match vs Japan for his comeback?

I guess it depends on how he goes in the Mitre 10 match this weekend.

The Wallabies tend to do well in these meaningless games.

Use our best 23 or near enough to it for the Wobs test and rest them all for Japan. 2 week off and they're good

You saw what Japan did to SA in the last RWC. If I was you I would play it the other way around.

Good opportunity for the wallabies to get a win. I think the ABs will be mixing it up, it’s a dead rubber (;-)) and we are looking at the big games against England and Ireland as the key part of this tour.

Will be resting key players for both games so a good chance for the Wallabies.

Wonder if they will experiment with BB at 15? Then we will see if that's an option going forward.

Apart from that, TTT getting game time, R.Mo and D.Mac getting time at 10 and the props coming back from injury there isn't much to get excited about.

Maybe Akira getting a run somewhere in the back 3. And seeing who is the 3rd place Openside with Cane broken

As a result of what?

This should be a stand alone Bledisloe test coz it's not part of the RC and literally a different season in the NH.
Winner takes all.

If the wallabies could win a home test then this would be winner takes all