Wayne Smith | June 09, 2009


Article from: The Australian

BERRICK Barnes believes his sparkling combination with Matt Giteau, one of the main highlights of the Wallabies' runaway victory over the Barbarians on the weekend, will only improve with age.

It's a partnership still in its infancy, with the Barbarians fixture marking only the ninth time Barnes has started at inside centre outside Giteau, with Australia winning eight of those matches.

Throw in the Wales and Fiji pool victories the Wallabies enjoyed during the 2007 World Cup when Barnes dramatically was thrust into the five-eighth position alongside Giteau at centre after Steve Larkham's campaign was terminated by a knee injury, and their record as a pairing extends to 10 wins from 12 matches.
While that 83 per cent success rate is hardly their doing entirely, it is no coincidence that the Wallabies fortunes have soared on the back of having two brilliant playmakers working in tandem.

Certainly Italian coach Nick Mallett, whose side meets the Wallabies in the first Test of the season in Canberra on Saturday, identified the two players as key contributors to the record-breaking defeat of the Barbarians.

"With Barnes and Giteau together, their kicking was outstanding," Mallett said.
And not just their kicking. Both players regularly broke the line and for once Barnes' wide-passing game could fully be exploited because the Wallabies, unlike his Queensland Reds, were so quick to the breakdown that the ball could safely be shifted to the flanks without running a major risk of a turnover.

For a player whose hands and feet caused the Barbarians no end of trouble, Barnes regards himself more as Giteau's eyes and ears. "My job is to make the tackles, give Gits the calls when he needs them and try to be there as an added option if he is ever caught in a breakdown," Barnes said yesterday. "You just try to help out wherever you can and that's the role I've tried to take on. You try to be his eyes and ears and work out what options are on."

Giteau, as the best playmaker in the game, is a difficult player to read, even for the man playing alongside him, but Barnes believes he is becoming more adept at anticipating his moves. "When you play with people for a while, you get to know their idiosyncracies and pick up little cues.

"But I hope our combination can become better. The key to it is playing together and remaining injury-free."

Barnes played the first seven Tests under Robbie Deans in the number 12 jersey before being injured in the historic Durban victory over the Springboks and had just worked his way back into the side when he suffered another critical knee injury just 10 minutes into the Italy Test in Padua last November.

Ironically, that was to have been the Test when Giteau got to take a breather but when Barnes went down with what proved to be a tour-ending injury, he was thrust into the fray, ultimately contributing 17 points to Australia's hard-fought 30-20 victory.

The Wallabies began with a rush that day, posting an early try to Lachlan Turner but just as quickly went off the boil. Barnes remembers watching on with growing anxiety as the Italians lifted their game, closing to within three points of Australia before a sensational late try by Quade Cooper resolved the issue.

"It just goes to show if you're not on against these blokes, you're going to be in for a tough day," Barnes said. "They work you hard up front and obviously now with Craig Gower directing things, they're going to have options out wide as well. So we're definitely going to have to be on our game."

Unfortunately, the Wallabies will have to be on their game without rampaging flanker Rocky Elsom, whose long-awaited return to Test football has been delayed by a troublesome injury to his right knee.

In his absence and with Matt Hodgson unluckily facing three weeks on the sideline with the shoulder injury he sustained against the Barbarians, Dean Mumm is poised to resume duty at blindside flanker when coach Robbie Deans announces his first Test squad of the year today.




http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html