David Leggat: Giant prop or next big thing?

It had a familiar ring about it.

A chap called Rodney Blake has been christened "Rodzilla" and given the tag Australia's Next Big Thing ahead of tonight's Bledisloe Cup shindig in Brisbane.

Blake has been puffed up as The Man To Save The Wallaby Scrum.

To be fair to the beefy tighthead, he hasn't been saying these things. But All Blacks aren't noted for being discerning when it comes to such matters.

In 1988, Australia offered an itinerary to New Zealand, which included a game against a club side.

Now Randwick were a pretty decent mob, with several internationals, including Simon Poidevin, Ewen McKenzie and a certain D. J. Campese on the wing.

But in conversation with the All Black captain, Wayne Shelford, the day before the match, it became very clear, very quickly, that he took a dim view of the world's most famous international team being asked to play a club side.

The next day, Shelford played for keeps, at one point giving a fair imitation of a bloke trying to remove Poidevin's head without anaesthetic at one of those rolling mauls much loved in the late 1980s.

So tonight expect the front row to zero in and give Blake a "welcome to the big time, pal" greeting.

If Blake measures up, if he resembles a two-legged rock, given their woes of recent years in the front row, the chap you'll see doing cartwheels in the glass box at Suncorp Stadium will be Wallaby coach John Connolly.

Blake is about the size and weight of a small house. His technique will come under close scrutiny. If he's undone by Tony Woodcock, the sight of a big man crumpling will be a psychological disaster for the entire pack.

Australians are good at this discovery lark. How often have we heard they've uncovered, in a blaze of headlines, a bright new talent, only to discover things are distinctly not what they'd been touted to be?

Last year, a left arm bowler called Mitchell Johnson was all the rage, with the tagline "he's going to be as quick as Thommo", as in Jeff Thomson, the human slingshot capable of terrifying speed 25 years ago.

Johnson's comments indicated he had tickets on himself. Then he arrived at Jade Stadium and bowled like a drain, and at a pace Thommo could probably just manage now at 55.

So spare a thought for the quiet giant tonight. He's been put in a place he'd rather not be, but it's a well-worn path in Australian sport.

* A month ago, football's World Cup was dominating the sports pages, and rightly so. It was the biggest show on the planet.

"Waddabouttherugby?" you'd hear the diehards roar.

This weekend, they can strap themselves into their favourite chair and gorge themselves as New Zealand rugby's brave new world peers into the light.

It goes like this: 2pm, Manawatu v Auckland; 4pm, Counties Manukau v Otago; 6.05pm, Taranaki v Wellington; 10pm Wallabies v All Blacks.

But wait, there's more. Tomorrow 2.35pm, Northland v Southland; and, bringing up the rear, 4.35pm, Tasman v North Harbour.

Whew. Depending on your perspective, it's weekend tele-nirvana, or time to biff the set out the window.

The Air New Zealand Cup will produce a few cricket scores and some new faces who will catch the eye.

Will it be a ratings winner? Being rugby, probably. Will the crowds, deprived for much of the time of their All Blacks, vote with their feet, as in putting them up on the footstool? Most likely.

And from the you've-got-to-be-kidding file, if those in the Auckland region look ahead to round four, they'll doubtless wonder which brainbox at Wellington HQ came up with a draw which has Counties hosting Northland at 12.30pm; Auckland entertaining Bay of Plenty at 2.35pm; and North Harbour at home to Wellington at 4.35pm? Brilliant.