Andrew Slack: Only victory that matters is skipper raising the Webb Ellis Cup

It's been some time since the All Blacks have knowingly given the Wallabies a helping hand before a Bledisloe Cup match. I'd say roughly, since about forever.

In fairness, the Cavaliers tour to South Africa probably gave us a leg-up in 1986 when a number of your finest were banned from the first of that three-test series, but even though some form of punishment was likely as Andy Dalton and his troops set off for the Republic, they weren't to know they'd pay for their rebellion by missing a Bledisloe Cup encounter.

When Graham Henry and his brains trust began planning for the 2006 season, they understood that in the name of World Cup fine-tuning, some things would have to be sacrificed and if a less than perfect preparation for this year's Tri-Nations was one of them, then so be it.

While the notion of a test jersey, black, gold or any colour in between, being handed out to anyone less than the fully deserving still rankles the conservative in me (and probably Henry and several other national coaches as well), the realist accepts that commercial pressures mean the only victory that REALLY matters any more is the one that sees the skipper raising the Webb Ellis Cup.

So with October 20, 2007, firmly in mind, the All Blacks in the three tests so far this year have mixed, matched, rested, rotated and revolved their personnel in a quite impressive show of playing depth and strength.

The Wallabies have fiddled only slightly in selection, with much of the tinkering forced by injury or the need to discover a front row that can cut the mustard at the top level.

New Zealand have taken different teams to different continents in the past month while a stable Wallaby outfit has tried, and so far succeeded, to get back on track.

If George Gregan's men can't beat New Zealand when they're in experimentation phase, they'd have to be very nervous about how things might turn out when the All Blacks get fair dinkum.

Of course, Richie McCaw's men will be totally focused today but they can't possibly be quite as cohesive as might have been the case had the same players been combining together over the past month.

How you prove what works and what doesn't is beyond me. The only right approach seemingly will be the one taken by the team that wins in Paris in 15 months time, but in the meantime most real contenders will, at some stage, take this rotational route.

Australia's playing depth does not equate to New Zealand's and even if it did, John Connolly wouldn't have taken too many risks in the early months of his Wallaby coaching reign.

Coming on the back of eight defeats in their last nine tests in 2005, the first thing the Wallabies required under the new regime was a restoration of confidence, so until a couple of victories against the big guns of New Zealand and South Africa is secured, it's unlikely there'll be anything other than full strength outfits running out in the gold clobber.

Next year though might be a different story, should things fall the way Connolly wants over the coming months.

Already there is talk of the Wallaby stars being rested from certain Super 14 matches in 2007 and while the provincial coaches are making sympathetic noises in regard to the plight of the national interest, you can bet your boots that when the time comes to sacrifice their gun players they'll be far less amenable.

The landscape is changing more every year, and the days when each test match as it came along was the only thing that mattered, have unfortunately long gone. Everything now is part of a four-year plan and the All Blacks are well into theirs.

Nothing is ever easy against the boys in black but today is as good a chance as any for the Wallabies to take advantage of the home side's less than ideal preparation and perhaps sneak a rare win on New Zealand soil.

Andrew Slack is a former Wallaby captain and centre