Both Wayne Pivac and Dave Rennie need to add some NZ magic to their battered and weakened sides at Principality Stadium on Saturday
Wales coach Wayne Pivac at the Wales v Georgia game at Principality Stadium, Cardiff on Saturday November 19th. Photograph: Ashley Crowden/InphoThe international window has closed, and most people have moved on. How Wales and Australia must feel they could join them. But, no, they must rouse themselves once more – in Australia’s case for a fifth weekend in a row – to satisfy the baying hordes of fans and corporate suits.
It goes without saying, both sides have made changes, although Australia’s are to the side that lost with honour to Ireland last weekend. Their three-point defeat in Dublin was their heaviest of this tour, every other match on it having been decided by a single point. The first was their only win, against Scotland at Murrayfield, a week before that international window had creaked open, but since then they have lost to France, with honour, to Italy, with opprobrium, and to Ireland.
Pivac’s case may be harder to argue, given he includes six players with 626 Wales caps between them, 200 more than those of Australia’s starting line-up. Alun Wyn Jones, Leigh Halfpenny and Taulupe Faletau are among six changes to the side that lost to Georgia, and they supply 345 of those caps between them.
Rennie’s touring party, meanwhile, has been reduced to 25 fit players. Nic White returned to the field in Dublin under controversial circumstances, having suffered an evident brain injury, but he sits this out, alongside Michael Hooper and Dave Porecki, who are suffering from the same. Taniela Tupou, the mighty Tongan Thor, was felled in the same match by his own Achilles. He will be out for seven months.
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