KEY POINTS:
You could imagine Daniel Carter and Matt Giteau giving each other a "let's get it on" nod before tonight's Bledisloe Cup kickoff with a secondary gesture of "see you in the bar afterwards".
These are two young men with the ice-water veins teams need as directors in the
boiling inferno which is international rugby. They are calm because they are so skilled, because they are in control of their ability, because they are confident.
They are a pair of frightening talent and while Carter is older at 26, by about six months, it was Giteau who made his test debut first and was also first to collect 50 international caps.
Carter achieves that mark tonight against the transtasman rivals against whom he has racked up five wins and two defeats in seven Bledisloe Cup starts.
He made his test debut as a second five-eighths outside Carlos Spencer against Wales in Hamilton in 2003 and curiously did not start as first five-eighths against the Wallabies until the beginning of the 2006 Tri-Nations series.
Carter was nurtured at provincial, Super 12 then test level initially by Robbie Deans, who has now transferred his talents to the Wallabies and is getting more from the talented frame of Giteau.
While the Wallaby has more experience he considers Carter to be the premier five-eighths in the world and revels in being able to pit his talents against him.
Under Deans' guidance, he has been concentrating on his own game but will review and compare his impact against Carter's contribution once tonight's square-off is done.
"He has composure, he has all the skills, a great kicking game, he can pass really well and if he needs to run he has got good feet. He has a good fend and he is quite fast so I think there is no real weakness and that is what puts him ahead of anyone else," Giteau said. "He also defends strongly _ like I say he has got it all."
Isolating Carter was a good tactic and a way of strangling the All Blacks but it was also a dangerous tactic, the Wallaby five-eighths added. The All Blacks had strong players throughout their side and it would be counter-productive, even dangerous to concentrate on just shutting down Carter. The idea was to sit on every player.
On attack, Deans had given him some new ideas and encouraged him to play with his head up more, rather than being set on some preconceived tactic.
"He has given me more of an awareness, looking for mismatches, which is something I do but need to do more regularly. And what he has brought is that confidence for all players," Giteau said. "He just tells you to play your natural game because those are the attributes which got us into the Wallabies in the first place."
It is a simple philosophy, the sort of distilled thinking Carter brings to each test match.
The All Black five-eighths said Deans' impact with the Wallabies would be measured more in the way he motivated players and encouraged them to play to the top of their ability.
"Robbie is best at bringing the best out of players and I think he's done that," Carter told NZPA. "He's picked a couple of new guys like Berrick Barnes and Peter Hynes on the wing and they're just stepping up and playing really well."
He was not convinced Deans' influence could be attributed to Giteau's strong form this season. "I don't know if that's Robbie's influence or not. He's a classy player, he's always been right up there. Obviously he hasn't played a lot of test football at 10 but he's been given that opportunity and he's played extremely well."
The phlegmatic Carter fended off any great discussion about his 50th cap other than his desire for a victory.
He has suffered only six defeats in his test career, three losses against the Boks, the World Cup quarter-final defeat by France last year and losses against the Wallabies in 2004 in Sydney and last season at the MCG.
