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Giteau's express wishes
By James Hooper
December 23, 2007
MATT Giteau can shuffle through midfield opponents with card-shark precision and send a spiralling bullet-pass bang on the button from the base of a scrum, but "Kid Dynamite" really covets the Australia No.10 jersey.
Australian rugby's greatest attacking asset, Giteau was identified last week as one of the central figures in new coach Robbie Deans' vision to resurrect the Wallabies as a force.
With rugby ranks rejoicing about the impending expansive revolution under Deans, Giteau has pinpointed close friend and Western Force teammate Matt Henjak as the playmaking partner to help him lead the Wallabies towards a new frontier.
The double act was initiated three doors down from each other in Queanbeyan, just across the border from Canberra, where Giteau grew up in Conway Street, with Henjak around the corner in Rusten Street.
"That's obviously a huge goal of ours. I'd love nothing more than for Matty to be playing for the Wallabies again and for me to be playing alongside him," Giteau said.
"The biggest thing I need to get my head around is the calling structure at five-eighth. When you're at inside-centre, you don't have to worry about calling. You just go out there and play."
For the past two seasons, Giteau has been the Mr Fix-it of the Wallabies backline, pushed into halfback as an alternative to an aging George Gregan and whisked back to inside centre to add more potency to the midfield.
With Gregan and Steve Larkham dominating the Australian halves for the past decade, one of the first assignments for Deans will be to decide who will sharpen the Wallabies attack and lead us back towards the promised land.
Giteau and Henjak, best friends from the age of three, are perhaps the X-factor Australian rugby has been missing.
That's from the Sunday Telegraph folks!!!