World Cup rehearsal for Australia







WHILE the All Blacks and the Springboks are making prestigious grand slam tours of the British Isles, the Wallabies could not have asked for a better itinerary for their travels in the northern hemisphere.

The Wallabies' tour of Hong Kong and Europe is almost a dress rehearsal for the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
The five-Test tour includes matches with the All Blacks, England, France, Italy and Wales.
If World Cup results go according to seedings, the Wallabies will meet three of these teams in the knock-out stages of the tournament. They would play Wales in the quarter-final, England or France in the semi-final and New Zealand in the final.
Given that the Wallabies have already beaten the All Blacks in Hong Kong and Wales in Cardiff, they can achieve a clean-sweep of potential World Cup finals opponents if they beat England and France.
Not only would that give the Wallabies their first undefeated tour of Europe since 1996 (assuming they beat Munster in their second midweek game), but it would provide them with the self-belief they will need to win the World Cup.


If they can beat all of these teams away from home now, they will be confident they can beat them again in 10 months.
The Wallabies play Italy in the opening round of the World Cup, which gives extra meaning to their game against the Azzurri in Florence tomorrow week. They have not lost a Test to the Italians and don't want to start now.
The Wallabies need to maintain their ascendancy over the Italians because an upset loss in New Zealand next year would threaten to derail their World Cup campaign before it really got started.
The real danger team in their World Cup pool is Ireland. While the Wallabies drew with Ireland during their failed bid to win the grand slam last November, they did beat the Irish in Brisbane in June, which means they could go into the World Cup with victories over every major opponent they will face in the tournament.
The Wallabies should enter the Test against England at Twickenham tomorrow morning with a reasonable degree of confidence.
Although they did not play particularly well against Wales, they still managed to record an important win. Perhaps more importantly, they learnt how to close out a game.
England will be chuffed about their chances, having beaten the Wallabies 21-20 in their last encounter in Sydney in June.
England coach Martin Johnson has named 13 of the 15 players who started in Sydney.
But England did not play Australia's top team that day.
Only eight Wallabies who started in Sydney will run on at Twickenham.
Anyway, Australia would have won that game in Sydney if Matt Giteau had landed a late penalty goal from point-blank range.
The Wallabies have no fear of playing at Twickenham and with hooker Stephen Moore back from injury, their scrum will be better than it was at Cardiff.
England will have to completely dominate the game up front to win, but if the Wallabies can gain parity in the forward exchanges, the English red rose will wilt in the radiance of the brilliant Wallabies backs.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225952897945