SYDNEY : The tightest Rugby Championship for many years goes down to the wire at the weekend and, for once, the All Blacks do not have full control of the destination of the title as they head into their final clash against the Wallabies.
New Zealand already have the Bledisloe Cup in the bag for a 20th straight year after their 39-37 victory over Australia in Melbourne but anything that close an Auckland on Saturday would ill-serve their bid for a 19th southern hemisphere crown.
Equal on points with South Africa, who play Argentina in Durban nine hours later, the All Blacks need to secure a bonus point win and blow out their +13 points differential advantage over the Springboks as far as possible.
Such calculations dismiss the title ambitions of Australia and Argentina, of course, and it would perhaps be unwise to rule out the extraordinary set of results required for those to enter the equation after a rollercoaster ride of a championship.
The All Blacks have won four and lost four matches so far this year and, title or no title, coach Ian Foster will be desperate for a performance that shows his team is on the right track for next year’s World Cup.
“There’s some parts we can’t control, as there’s a game after us, but there’s a massive part that we can control,” he said on Thursday.
“We can control the quality of our performance. And we know from last week we’re playing against a team that we have massive respect for, and pushed us to the wire.”
The All Blacks will take the field without captain Sam Cane, who was concussed in Melbourne, but do have Ardie Savea, probably their best player this season, back at number eight after he sat out the Australia trip.
Although two losses to Ireland and another to the Pumas this year have destroyed the aura of invincibility the All Blacks once enjoyed on home soil, their last defeat at Eden Park came in 1994 and it is 34 years since Australia won there.
Wallabies coach Dave Rennie made minimal changes to the side that will try and break that hoodoo but was forced to tweak the back row that caused so many problems for the All Blacks in Melbourne because of an injury to Rob Leota.
The Australians arrived in Auckland nursing a genuine grievance after the extraordinary decision to penalise Bernard Foley for time-wasting at the end of last week’s match allowed the All Blacks the chance to score the winning try.
Rennie will be hoping that will fuel a display to match the one that almost took the spoils last time out, even if his appetite for encouraging performances is fast running out.
“Last week there were a lot of positives, but we lost, so we need to go one better this week,” he said.
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