John Eales edges Richie McCaw to captain Mark Ella's All Blacks-Wallabies pro era XV

Richie McCaw. Photo / Getty Images.

Here's a surprise, not: Australian rugby legend Mark Ella has plumped for his compatriot John Eales ahead of You Know Who to captain a combined All Blacks-Wallabies team of the professional era.

First five-eighth Ella, perhaps the most gifted player Australia have produced, picked nine All Blacks in his XV - a gimmick timed for the start of the Rugby Championship, and the renewal of Bledisloe Cup hostilities in Sydney on Saturday night.

The greatest All Black, two-time World Cup-winning skipper Richie McCaw makes the team, but big lock Eales, a breaker of All Black hearts for several years in the late 1990s, gets the captain's armband, alongside Brodie Retallick in the middle of the scrum.

"They (Eales and McCaw) are giants of the game in any era," Ella wrote in The Australian.

"Eales was Mr Perfect and there wasn't anything he couldn't do on the rugby field. He was a great captain who had great respect for the game, his teammates, opponents and adjudicators. He always led from the front, which is a tribute to him as a person.

"Like Eales, McCaw epitomised what rugby is all about, as a person and a player who did more for the game than the game did for itself."

The selection time frame starts with the advent of professional rugby in 1996.

Ella was a dazzling No 10 who led the Wallabies to a Grand Slam victory in 1984, scoring a try in all four tests against England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, before stunning the game by retiring that year, at 25. Ella admitted there were close calls in other positions, such as opting for Australian Phil Kearns at hooker over Dane Coles, and didn't mention Kearns' fierce rival Sean Fitzpatrick.

Splitting Dan Carter and Stephen Larkham as first five-eighth was another area of serious head-scratching.

"Although Larkham could be freakish at times, reading the game and finding holes in the defensive line better than anyone else, Carter's longevity in the position and his consistency as a leader make it hard to argue against," Ella wrote.

"Carter and Larkham are absolute champions of the game who certainly deserved to be acknowledged for their abilities to turn a game around and for the entertainment that they provided to all the fans in Australia and across the ditch."

Ella's XV: Christian Cullen (NZ), Joe Roff (Australia), Tana Umaga (NZ), Jonah Lomu (NZ), Tim Horan (Australia), Dan Carter (NZ), George Gregan (Australia), Toutai Kefu (Australia), Richie McCaw (NZ), Jerome Kaino (NZ), John Eales (c, Australia), Brodie Retallick (NZ), Carl Hayman (NZ), Phil Kearns (Australia), Tony Woodcock (NZ).