Eden Park stage set for showstopper

Brent Ward, centre, returns to the Auckland team tonight against Wellington. Picture / Mark Mitchell

The entertainers are in town tonight, and you don't need to head for the nearest big top to find them.

There won't be any false wigs, red noses, unicycles and juggling pins at Eden Park when Auckland and Wellington square off in the big match of the penultimate round of the NPC but there'll be no shortage of razzmatazz.

Earlier events have set the stage like this: Auckland are all but sure of a semifinal place, but they want to play at home. Victory tonight will ensure that.

Wellington must win. Nothing less will do if they want to be running around in mid-October.

They lie fifth, a point behind North Harbour, whose players and supporters will find themselves in the odd situation of gritting their teeth and roaring for players in blue and white tonight.

Add in that both teams play entertaining rugby by instinct and design, both possess players who have a heady approach to the game and some relevant statistics - for example, if they stick to their season averages, this game will produce eight tries - and the ingredients are in place.

Auckland have had one setback, a thumping 40-19 loss to Taranaki in New Plymouth a fortnight ago. Other than that, they have won, albeit not always as convincingly as they should, but at least the points have kept rolling in.

Wellington have been, well, Wellington. Dazzling at times - most notably the dismantling of Waikato in Hamilton - frustrating at others, such as the home defeats to North Harbour and Otago, which threatened to scupper their title ambitions as early as round three.

But to those wondering which Wellington will run out tonight, Auckland and All Black lock Ali Williams has the answer.

"I can pick what they'll be like," he said. "They will come and throw everything at us. They put everything out last week [against Canterbury] and just missed out.

"They are a passionate side. Auckland-Wellington clashes are huge. They're going to be hard work and we've got to be on our game."

Just as Williams is back to stiffen the Auckland pack - with All Black chums Keven Mealamu and Mils Muliaina on the bench, and Joe Rokocoko and Doug Howlett on the wings - so Wellington have wheeled out their big guns tonight.

Rodney So'oialo returns at No 8 and regains the captaincy from Ma'a Nonu; All Black skipper Tana Umaga is back at second five-eighths, inside Conrad Smith, and that means shunting Nonu, who has been a damaging operator in midfield this season, out to the wing to get a start.

But he'll have a roving brief, according to Wellington coach John Plumtree. "I wanted those three guys playing and on the park, not the bench and that meant moving somebody to the wing.

"Ma'a won't be out of the game. We've given him a licence to roam," Plumtree said.

Nonu will be marking Howlett but Plumtree is unconcerned at Auckland's cluster of fliers.

"With any wings there's probably an issue with pace against those guys [Howlett and Rokocoko] but we've got other strengths. I think we will hold our own," he said.

There will also be a battle of two of the best goalkickers in the country, Brent Ward and Jimmy Gopperth.

Ward is back after a one-week injury layoff. He's potted 34 of 43 shots this season for a 79 per cent average.

Only dead-eye Ben Blair at Canterbury (37 out of 46) and Gopperth, with 35 of 46 shots, for a 76 per cent success rate, have kicked more goals than Ward.