Justin Marshall's chalkboard: How the All Blacks can exploit Cooper

The selection of Quade Cooper for the Wallabies tomorrow night has been the major talking point of the week. Most of it has been around what he can offer with the ball in hand, particularly if his forwards get parity of dominance like they did in Sydney last weekend.

I'm more interested, however, in what it means for Australia defensively.

In the past, for both Queensland and Australia, he has been shifted out of the frontline in defence and has not been required to man the inside channel. Those teams adjusted their defensive systems to compensate for one player who had shown a vulnerability when defending the traditional No 10 channel.

This was before Michael Cheika came on board, so I'm intrigued to see what he does.

Will he move Cooper out of the line, as has been the case in the past, or leave him there? Both scenarios offer the All Blacks opportunities.

Radio Sport's Martin Devlin with All Blacks fullback Ben Smith.

Radio Sport's Martin Devlin talks to former All Blacks skipper Todd Blackadder.

If they leave him there, expect a fair bit of traffic down his lane. The All Blacks know from the past that they can target Cooper and get under his skin. Forcing him to work on defence, perhaps exposing his vulnerabilities again, could have a knock-on effect for his attacking game.

If he is moved out of the line, this almost certainly means that the defence will all shift in one. Matt Toomua will be asked to defend that channel, Tevita Kuridrani will move in and wing Adam Ashley-Cooper will defend as a centre.

Toomua, as I have discussed in the past when analysing the Brumbies, is a strong defender who is given licence to use his exceptional line-speed and shut down attacks.

He is an accurate tackler and often shuts down attacks out wide because he gets in the eyeline of the five-eighths who then turn play back inside to avoid him.

For all that, Toomua does offer opportunities for teams good enough to exploit his line-speed. Invariably toomua will come up quicker than those inside and outside him, so there are holes to punch. Also, as the drawing shows, he defends very much in the league mould by starting in line with the outside shoulder and working in. In rugby, it is traditional for the rushing defender to start on the inside shoulder or, at the most, square.

The All Blacks should have looked at this and figured out an angle of attack to exploit, or at leats nullify, this tactic.

There's no doubt the Wallabies line-speed upset the All Blacks rhythm last week and they weren't accurate enough to counter it. The Wallabies, with Toomua at the fore, will rush again at Eden Park.

Although no team likes to concede any ground to the advantage line, you might just see the home side take an extra half yard deep in attack to try to counter it.