KEY POINTS:
The irony about rugby's erratic test smorgasbord right now is that the country with the most to lose from injuries in regard to World Cup prospects is the one that has continued to throw its frontline players into the fray throughout the year.
Maybe Australia has no other
choice but to keep plugging away with its best players, but its dogged refusal to capitulate is providing one of the more fascinating lead-ins to this year's World Cup.
Australian coach John Connolly got the job by default only 17 months ago and it is easy to forget the sort of turnaround he supposedly needed to engineer for the Wallabies to mount a major tilt at the Webb Ellis Cup.
Who knows though? They might even head to France with the Bledisloe Cup in the bag.
There may be a serving of muck on the way from Christchurch this Saturday, where the All Blacks will destroy a dreadful Springbok squad. But the Bledisloe encounter a week later in Auckland shapes as a classic, and a chance to see if the Wallabies can start finding significant success on foreign soil.
Injuries remain the major concern for Australia.
Connolly, and Australian fans, must cringe every time a Wallaby stays on the deck.
The All Blacks would certainly be hurt if they lost key players, especially their two top props and Richie McCaw. Irreplaceable.
But even if Dan Carter went down, Nick Evans presents a decent alternative. You can see healthy, although not always brilliant, options in almost every place. It's a similar story for both France and South Africa, the other genuine World Cup contenders.
But Australia ... well, that's a different story. Look below the surface in some positions and there is actually nothing there.
The stocks are so low in the halves that they go into tests without back-ups on the bench and instead rely on an all-purpose option such as Matt Giteau.
If Julian Huxley is a World Cup-class fullback, or even a reasonable test fullback, I'll eat a hatmaker out of his house and home. The Wallabies desperately need Chris Latham back.
If the Aussies had suffered All Black-type locking problems, they might have had to haul John Eales out of retirement. Take Nathan Sharpe and Dan Vickerman out of the picture and it's tall timber all right, as in timbeerrrrrrrr.
As for the front row ... a few injuries have led to suggestions that Jeremy Paul - disowned as a World Cup prospect by coach Connolly - might return. Who on Earth would Australia call up for battling props Matt Dunning and Guy Shepherdson? Australia have invested just about all their front-row hope in those two, while praying they don't fall over. There is a queue of discarded All Black props, and even provincial types, who could walk into that Aussie side.
New Zealand fans might bemoan the problems at centre but in the final analysis Mils Muliaina supported by Conrad Smith isn't exactly a disaster.
But if the stupendous Stirling Mortlock was to cry off, then who would fill that hole for Australia? It would remain a hole.
And yet Australia keep on keeping on. By hook or by crook they are a chance to win the Bledisloe Cup and are sneaking into the World Cup calculations, prodding and poking those of us who had them hurtling towards the trash can a few months ago.
It's still very hard to see this Australian side winning the World Cup at the end of the day. You certainly don't feel tempted to write them up in headlines, yet it's also dangerous to write them off.
You suspect their entire top-string side must remain healthy for them to have a decent chance. Phil Waugh is a reasonable swap for George Smith, but apart from that even their bench is bare.
Australian rugby has often operated successfully on a veneer of quality, and they have made it work to their advantage at times.
The long-running partnership between George Gregan and Stephen Larkham is a prime example. After dabbling with other players following the retirements of Nick Farr-Jones and Michael Lynagh, the Wallabies have been driven along in nearly 80 tests by the Brumbies' halves. Gregan has been around so long that he played for three seasons alongside David Campese.
Gregan and Larkham have been secure in the job for almost all of that time, give or take the odd challenge from Mat Rogers and Matt Giteau. Security can breed success as long as it remains married to energy and desire.
You also get a sense of an us-against-the-world mentality out of Australian sides, even though rivalries run deep between the states. Necessity is the mother of cohesion in this case, because the Wallabies know they are battling the odds.
It is highly debatable, however, whether the small community of top players is working for the Wallabies any more and whether the endurance of the pedestrian Gregan in particular is a good thing.
This time around, Australian rugby's weaknesses will probably bring them down at the World Cup, you feel.
Win or lose, though, there must be admiration for what they achieve in a country where the game rates only as an occasional sidebar in some states because of three other passionately supported football codes.
Compare that to say New Zealand league, which is in a similar minority position.
Apart from the odd blast of success, the Kiwis are continually dealt to by Australia and promote a poor-me attitude when things go wrong. The Kiwis have great athletes, but play dumb. Decade after decade, they fail to produce quality playmakers apart from the rare exception.
Australian rugby, in contrast, has climbed the mountain by playing smart and having clever operators on the field. It has never been prepared to rest on excuses.
The Wallabies thought and talked their way to victory over New Zealand and South Africa. Their defence became increasingly elastic and resilient after slow starts, and remains clever at isolating and turning ball carriers to their advantage. Smith is a brilliant turnover operator. They also deny other teams by retaining the ball and kicking cleverly.
In attack, Australia pounce by running astute angles and having options and decoys with the remarkable Larkham capable of drifting this way and that, turning the ball here and there.
The All Blacks, a superior team because of their forward advantages, were beaten in the brains department. South Africa were exposed again as stupid and cumbersome.
Surely even South Africa C-plus should have more to their arsenal than obstructive and thuggish tactics, kicking, drop goal attempts and hunting intercept tries, even if it is the year of World Cup subterfuge.
Australia are a very different story, though, when it comes to strategy. They are hanging by a few impressive threads for a 2007 World Cup challenge.
A few threads can be enough in their case.