Australia stun All Blacks to win Rugby Championship

“The history of the games I’ve been involved in hasn’t been too good, ” Folau said.

That’s questionable considering the All Blacks’ legendary conditioning and the presence of Richie McCaw’s understudy Sam Cane, rested and ready to return to test rugby, on the visitors’ reserves bench.

The breakdown. There’s nothing new there, as it’s vital in any game, but the Springboks dominated the All Blacks at the breakdown in Johannesburg, where they overpowered and out-muscled the New Zealanders, and it’s been a subject of much debate and practice in training this week.

“We watched from the sidelines as the All Blacks got beaten at the SCG”.

The match will decide the victor of the Rugby Championship, which has been reduced this year due to the World Cup in England, which starts in little over a month.

If New Zealand wins on Saturday, it not only takes the Rugby Championship but makes the Bledisloe Cup safe for the 12th-straight year.

They expect an intensely physical approach from the Wallabies having watched them evolve under the coaching of Michael Cheika this year.

The coach upped the ante for his charges on Tuesday after saying he was dissatisfied with the previous session.

“I don’t even ever talk to the players about winning, I just talk to them about playing the game in a certain way that will make our supporters proud”, he said.

“We played them in Super Rugby”.

Preparing for two Bledisloe Cup Tests in eight days, he said: “I have always felt that it is not just a case of racking up numbers, but what you actually do when you’re on the field. That was yesterday and they definitely improved today”. I still remember back to when we didn’t have it and, put yourself in the Wallabies shoes, they will be desperate to get their hands on it.

“It was nice to be back in the contact work doing the full session, ” Slipper said.

The Wallabies last defeated the All Blacks in their final Tri Nations clash of 2011. However, the veteran admitted the road to holding the Bledisloe trophy will not be easy, especially with Australia coming off from impressive wins against South Africa and Argentina.

He has called for standards to lift across the board when they meet unbeaten Australia in Sydney on Saturday to fight out the Rugby Championship title. “The Aussie teams performed quite well”, Skelton said.

“It doesn’t change how we’re going to play the game and how we’re going to approach the breakdown”.

The 34-year-old’s career goes back so far that he can recall being part of a New Zealand side that lost the Bledisloe Cup series against Australia in 2002, the last time the Australians held the symbol of trans-Tasman Sea rivalry.

Smith says he will make it a priority to gel properly with whoever starts at inside centre.

“The reality is it will be my last Test in South Africa”.

“I’d like to obviously build a relationship with the guy I’m alongside”.

“Perhaps because a few of us realise what it’s like to not win it and I guess we are all in that situation at the moment, but that’s the motivation every time”.