This test should be played at a famous sporting amphitheatre rather than a non-descript AFL ground! 
 
Anyway, for the first time in two years, this weekend’s test between the All Blacks & the Wallabies is not being billed as Graham Henry against Robbie Deans with even Chris Rattue billing the All Blacks as clear favourites & handing them praise for the way they have played this year.  With both teams having already dismantled the Boks who will be better at executing this new breed of up tempo international rugby?

Interesting article from New Plymouth about the pre-season player movement in the NPC.  Seems they were quite bullish about their acquisitions & prospects for the season.
 
Well that was before they met the Mighty Kauris in the first hit out of the season anyway.

As they say - Australians were originally hand picked by England's finest judges.  Now they seem to have enlisted a photographer to snap some of Ted's playbook for this coming weekend & published it in their daily papers.  The All Black management have been known to suffer from a bit of paranoia in the past but any reaction this time seems justified.  The interesting thing will be to see if the Aussies are able to decipher much from that lot.

As I am yet to receive the excellent Rugby News NPC season preview edition I direct you to the Auckland Herald's brief season preview & an even briefer version from the Sunday Star Times.
 
What is notable to me is the amount of movement by what I would call established players between provinces.

The All Blacks have made two changes to their starting XV for this weekend's test versus the Convicts with The Rocketman replacing Rene Ranger on the left wing & Jimmy Cowan replacing Piri at halfback.  In the other change to the 22 Victor Vito takes Liam Messam's spot on the bench.
 
Meanwhile Berrick Barnes replaces the suspended Tokoroa Kid, though he will start in number 12 & Giteau will take over at number 10.  Stephen Moore takes over from Faingaa at hooker & the other Faingaa twin earns a place on the bench.

Ever since the Wellington test the South Africans seem to have taken whinging to a new level that would put the Poms to shame.  First of all PdV moaned about cheating & said how well the Boks had played.  Then SARU have asked a judge to investigate bias by refs against the Boks.  I don't remember any of this moaning when they were winning last year.
 
To top it off PdV has now stated that refs are favouring the All Blacks so tickets can be sold for next year's RWC? 

While the All Blacks take a well earned week off the Japies look to complete their Tri-Nations tour with a honour restoring win.  While NZ fans might think this game is of little interest it will tell us a lot about the resolve of the Boks & the state of the Convicts.

With the Tri-Nations in full swing the Ranfurly Shield campaign of Southland probably needed as much publicity as it could get.  But what it didn't need was old Big Mouth himself (Michael Laws) labelling Southland a bunch of poofs.  I'd like to see him say that in a Bluff local.

Thank goodness the NZRU has seen the light & re-introduced TV replays to help the refs in the NPC.  Last year's competition was marred by some poor decisions regarding tries as the poor refs had no TV assistance.  Particularly notable was the decision to disallow a try to Hawkes Bay prop Taumalolo as he crashed over in the corner against Canterbury.
 
The decision to take away the use of TV last year was very Sepp Blatter like & we don't want to go down that path!

Two in a row & there can be little doubt that the All Blacks have moved up a cog this year (and the Boks may have slipped one).  It was always going to be a big challenge to reproduce the performance from Eden Park and while they didn't reach those heights again it was still a significant performance.
 
But they were once again aided by Springbok indiscipline.  While the Rossouw sin binning appeared very harsh it was also a totally unnecessary act.  Why do the Boks commit such blatant acts at the start of games?