Five reasons to get excited about Saturday night's Bledisloe Cup test (as if you needed any reasons).
Nehe Milner-Skudder
This could be the start of an amazing test career. It restores the concept of a chalk-and-cheese wing combo - the power of Julian Savea with the craft of another Cory Jane-type - which has worked so well. Milner-Skudder is a magic man, a playmaker whose abilities include curling passes into inviting spaces. He's the sort of bloke who gets the turnstiles clicking. The Wallabies are clever defenders though and this is a baptism of fire in Sydney.
Israel Folau
The Wallaby fullback is the best all round athlete in rugby. How the Aussies use him will be pivotal to their World Cup chances. Whether they unveil the extent of their plans for Folau before the tournament begins is another matter, however.
Scrums
Time to throw away the peanuts and chew on a carcass instead. Then light the fire with a couple of sticks. Scrums get a bad rap. They might be boring time wasters outside of test rugby, but in the international arena they become heaving masses of importance where every centimetre gained or lost counts. Hell, even the collapsed ones are exciting.
Come on people, this is primeval heaven, like magnificent Greco-Roman wrestling on a grand scale. And nobody twists and turns scrums and their rules like a battling Aussie pack especially with their King of Combat Stephen Moore involved. As for those moments when you just know a random penalty is coming, and then the referee's arm shoots up, and the adrenaline follows...wonderful. The Aussies have an Argentinian tutor now, but Puma scrum mastery is based on a state of mind difficult to transplant. Stay tuned, because the All Blacks don't want the Wallabies to gain confidence in this department.
The first XXIII
This is (I think) the best All Black side available.
Michael Cheika
To heck with the statesmanlike poses of some rugby coaches. The new Wallaby boss is a streetwise scrapper, a bloke crying out for the description "love to hate".
He's like Quade Cooper with a clipboard. Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh but there's a hint of skulduggery in the air when Cheika is about as in the time he popped in to see the ref at halftime during a Super Rugby match. Everyone knows this is not allowed, but he got away with it. Even his excuse, that he was unhappy with the penalty count, was ridiculous because losing coaches are always unhappy with penalty counts.
Cheika's got a take-no-prisoners style, which is what test rugby should be all about. Former Aussie coach Rod Macqueen, an urbane character, is one of the few top rugby people to reveal the extent to which press opportunities are used to manipulate opponents. Beware Cheika - his glowing praise of Richie McCaw this week is a tactic.
