All Blacks team named for second Bledisloe Cup test,,,

The All Blacks team to play Australia in the second Bledisloe Cup Test of the Investec Rugby Championship match at Eden Park, Auckland, on Saturday 25 August has been named.
  The team is as follows: (with Test caps in brackets)

Starting XV:

1. Wyatt Crockett (6)
2. Keven Mealamu (94)
3. Owen Franks (35)
4. Luke Romano (2)
5. Samuel Whitelock (29)
6. Liam Messam (11)
7. Richie McCaw - captain (107)
8. Kieran Read (39)
9. Aaron Smith (4)
10. Daniel Carter (88)
11. Hosea Gear (10)
12. Sonny Bill Williams (18)
13. Ma'a Nonu (67)
14. Cory Jane (32)
15. Israel Dagg (16)

Reserves:

16. Andrew Hore (66)
17. Ben Franks (19)
18. Brodie Retallick (4)
19. Victor Vito (14)
20. Piri Weepu (60)
21. Aaron Cruden (11)
22. Ben Smith (5)

There is just one change from last week's starting XV, with prop Wyatt Crockett coming in for the injured Tony Woodcock at loosehead prop.

All Blacks Coach Steve Hansen said, while the All Blacks had been happy with their first-up 27-19 win over the Wallabies in Sydney last weekend, the expectation of the team was to continue to seek improvement in its performance.

"We are expecting that Australia will take a step up in their intensity after last weekend's loss and we will have to be ready for that challenge."

Hansen said the team was excited about playing the first home game of the Investec Rugby Championship in front of a sold-out Eden Park.

"Playing in front of our home crowd is always exciting for the All Blacks. The fans are important to us and getting the opportunity to play a home Test is one we cherish."

Meanwhile, All Blacks squad members Charlie Faumuina, Tamati Ellison and Adam Thomson have been made available to their respective provinces for this week's opening round of the ITM Cup, with All Blacks management keen for the trio to get some game time.

Interesting facts
• Richie McCaw played his 100th Test match last weekend as a starting flanker - the most by any flanker in history and recorded his 95th Test match win - the most by any player in history.
• Keven Mealamu made his 93rd Test match start as a hooker and achieved his 80th victory - both are records by a hooker in international rugby.
• Daniel Carter has scored 17 points in each of his three Test matches so far this year. Those 51 points have taken him beyond 1,300 points in Test matches - 1,301 to be exact.
• The All Blacks have played Australia 144 times since 1903, with 98 wins to the All Blacks, 41 to Australia and five draws.

happy with this line up, will be interesting to see how crockett preforms, u dont get too many opportunities when the frank brothers and woodcock are fit, so he needs to make a big statement,e specially with charlie faumuina and ben tamafuina pushing hard at the All Blacks propping doors.

hopefully the cobwebs have been blasted form the team and now its time  play with as little (preferably none) as possible.

expecting a big one with SBW possibly last rugby union game ever, so good luck to him and out boys.

GO ALL BLACKS!!! 

wallabies team named, but not their bench,,,,

15. Adam Ashley-Cooper   (NSW Waratahs)
14. Drew Mitchell                  (NSW Waratahs)
13. Rob Horne                         (NSW Waratahs)
12. Berrick Barnes                  (NSW Waratahs)
11. Digby Ioane                      (Queensland Reds)
10. Quade Cooper                (Queensland Reds)
9. Will Genia                            (Queensland Reds, captain)
8. Scott Higginbotham         (Queensland Reds)
7. Michael Hooper                (Brumbies)
6. Dave Dennis                       (NSW Waratahs)
5. Nathan Sharpe                  (Western Force)
4. Sitaleki Timani                    (NSW Waratahs)
3. Ben Alexander                    (Brumbies)
2. Tatafu Polota Nau             (NSW Waratahs)
1. Benn Robinson                   (NSW Waratahs)

IMO, dropping beale and leaving horne in the starting lineup, WTF??? o_O
i guess whatever deans plan is, it will only work if the All Blacks fans are overconfident, and the sad thing is, ite wroking, LMAO, :P

i rate barnes, but cooper and barnes playing side by side is fudged up big time, nonu and SBW are going to reenact that scene in return of the king where legolas and gimbili are counting the number of enemies they kill to see who gets the most, only nonu and SBW will be sseing hiow many time the will bust up inside cooper and barnes cos both cooper and barnes aint gonna stop jack diddly squat.
they do give a nicer balance on attack though, but everytime that ball is in All Black hands, they will be the weakest link,,,goodbye.

a much stronger frontrow, but their locks, meh. sharpies a proven legend, but timani, have no idea what deano sees in him, or horne for that matter, both are adequate spXv level players at best anmd nothing else and if i was a wallby supporter i would be pretty peed off with those two being selected and deans selections all round.

WOW Waratahs...  The gap wll be more than 8 this time round. Good news for SA since we dropped that bonus point int he first match.

 The Australian Forward pack is looking very weak.

The All Blacks are going to dominate the advantage line- which is going to mean a hard day at the office for Cooper and Barnes.

On attack the Australians will probably get man and ball at the same time and hospital passes should be the order of the day.

One Defence(OZ), they are going to have Umaga(typo-Nonu) and SBW running at them at full speed all day.

This could get embarrasing for the Wallabies. Mosly New South Wales players- who were very poor in the Super 15.

 The forwards are going to get killed so the only glimmer of hope is to move the ball away from the forwards. 

@sharkbok,

just cos theyre samoans with dreads dosent mean they all look the same, LMAO. think u mean nonu, but i got the drift, :P,,,,and i agree 100%, cooper and barnes are going to see a lot of traffic.


anyway, im one to talk, the aussie team i copy pasted is wrong, o_O it should be stephen moore at hooker, not polotu nau.

wallabies forward pack is very weak indeed.

Sasu

Beale had a complete matchwinning performance last Saturday for the All Blacks.   One ofthe worst displays I have ever seen from am international level player.   I am not surprised at all by his ommission from the Aussie squad.

I think the All Blacks will beat them with relative ease if they can cut out handling and penalty mistakes.   A repeat of last Saturdays performance will leave serious question marks in the mind of rugby purits    Am looking forward to the game though.

@clevermike,

beale had a shocker, no doubt about it, his worst performance in yellow,according to him and i havent found anyone to disagree. but just cos he had a bad game dosent mean he should be dropped, the dude is a class player and hardly the first star to have an off day.

IMO considring the wallabies lack of depth, hes the last player they should have benched and should he come on and have a shocker, we could be looking at the next matt giteau cos his confidence will have been beaten to a pulp.

i dont see how deans can deop beale and then justify the selection of horne, dennis and timani who between the three of them have the same workrate as a watermellon.

from an All Blacks point of view, the job got a lot easier IMO.