KEY POINTS:
Carrying solitary five-eighths Matt Giteau as the Wallabies have done is a risk the All Blacks would not be prepared to take, assistant coach Wayne Smith declared on the eve of the Tri-Nations decider.
He acknowledged Giteau's resilience in test warfare but also suggested he would be jumpy about using Stirling Mortlock as backup playmaker under the Wallabies' latest strategy.
While the Wallaby management have stayed quiet about their plans should Giteau be wounded at Suncorp Stadium, word has leaked out that the Wallaby skipper would move in another place in the backline to deal with that emergency.
The Wallabies have stacked their bench with five forwards and just two backs and without the injured Berrick Barnes they do not have anyone with five-eighths experience should Giteau be injured.
The gamble interests the All Blacks for any number of reasons. They feel they can blunt the Wallabies if Giteau is taken out of play by repeated defensive duties or forced to do more on attack than he wants to.
"I'm not sure I would," Smith said when asked if he would go into a test without a recognised backup five-eighths.
"It is a pivotal position but I have known Rob for a lot of years and he will have a backup five-eighths in his mix, there is no doubt about that."
If it was Mortlock and he had to play five-eighths, he would bring some massive gainline traction for the Wallabies but Giteau was tough and influential and the All Blacks would not make him a special target.
Nor would they concentrate, in particular, on hounding Wallaby fullback Adam Ashley-Cooper after his modest work in the Wallabies' last huge defeat against the Springboks. That game was now irrelevant.
There appeared to have been some malaise among the Wallabies that day and the fullback was one of those with indifferent form but he had shown, previously, he was also a quality player.
Smith was unsure under the new rules whether the side which played the most rugby would win or be in the most danger of losing tomorrow's test in Brisbane.
"It is an interesting point," Smith said before offering the thought that the team "which played the smartest rugby" would take the honours.
This test was a huge occasion, a winner-take-all scenario just like the return Bledisloe Cup test last year at Eden Park where the All Blacks had to win to retain the trophy.
"There have been some big games in the past but this is a big one, not the biggest of all time but it is up there," Smith added.
He was unsure about the future of the experimental law variations, given that the All Blacks would be playing under a restricted hybrid format on their end-of-year tour to Europe. Future analysis by the game's lawmakers would decide that and there did not appear to be any reduction in interest in the Northern Hemisphere with a 52,000 crowd going to the recent Wasps-London Irish game.
The All Blacks will make a decision today on the fitness of reserve prop John Afoa. He has trained well and did not appear to have any problems with his shoulder but he will need another assessment of his fitness.
