Wallaby coach sleeping with the enemy

BRISBANE - Wallabies coach John Connolly will kiss his partner Joanne Price goodbye tomorrow and wait for the inevitable: "Good luck, darling, but ... go the All Blacks!"

Forget all the pre-test jousting, Connolly has already copped some transtasman sledging in his own home this week from Price, a Wellingtonian, as the Bledisloe Cup test kickoff approaches.

The pair met four years ago in Connolly's home town of Brisbane and have a son, Jesse, 2, whose national allegiance is still up in the air. His grandparents (on his mother's side) still live in Wellington.

Price - at 34 she is 20 years Connolly's junior - is finding it hard to let go of the All Blacks bias.

"It's an ongoing process - like our front row," Connolly said yesterday with a grin. "Like most New Zealanders she feels she's an expert on rugby. Luckily I choose to ignore it."

Price will be among the 52,500 crowd at Suncorp Stadium tomorrow, apparently with a foot in both camps.

"She's going to a corporate box with a few All Blacks supporters, but she'll have a green and gold scarf on."

Price travelled with Connolly to Britain for his previous coaching stint with Bath, where young Jesse was born in March 2004. Connolly has two other sons, 23 and 22, from his previous marriage.

A sporty type who paddles canoes on the Sunshine Coast, Price dabbled in gaelic football but wasn't, as a recent report stated, a wing for the Wellington women's rugby team.

"I'm not sure where that came from," Connolly said.

For the former pub bouncer they call "Knuckles" it is his first Bledisloe Cup test at home since he got the job in January, after being rejected for the Wallabies coaching post three times in the previous decade or so.

Connolly's team are aware that he has crossed a line with his choice of partner but he is quick to point out that halfback Sam Cordingley's partner is also a Kiwi. Said Connolly: "I haven't admitted it to too many but they know."

- NZPA