Waratahs see through Brumbies' smokescreen

[tdevil]

The Brumbies have created a smokescreen over the strength of their side for the Super 14 trial against the Waratahs at Gosford on Friday night, claiming they will field a team lacking their stars and aimed at experimentation.

ACT might experiment, but the 27-man squad coach Laurie Fisher has named - but not yet numbered - is hardly short of top-line players.

Headlined Brumbies Hold Back Stars For Tahs Game, a Brumbies press release announcing the squad yesterday championed only World Cup Wallabies prop Guy Shepherdson as a star. It said he would play his first game since the Cup "alongside a host of youngsters and debutants against a powerful Waratahs contingent which includes most of their Test players".

But the squad includes five previous Wallabies squad members. Alongside Shepherdson, who has eight Test caps, will be prop Nic Henderson (three), second-rowers Alister Campbell (four) and Adam Wallace-Harrison, and back-rower Jone Tawake, both uncapped. Add hooker Huia Edmonds, who played last year in South Africa for the Stormers, and former Australia A and Australian Barbarians halfback Patrick Phibbs, and the line-up is hardly weak on experience.

NSW coach Ewen McKenzie was not fooled. "It's all how you put it in your press release," he said. "It is not exactly a team lacking experience in key positions. It is a pretty competitive outfit."

The strength of the ACT pack was not lost either on Wallabies and Waratahs tight-head prop Al Baxter, who said: "It looks like they are talking themselves down.

"When you look at a tight five that includes names like Shepherdson, Henderson, Edmonds, Campbell and Wallace-Harrison, that is definitely an Australian A if not a Wallabies [standard] forward pack."

Baxter is keen to take on a strong pack. "Definitely - you don't want to be kidding yourself," he said. "Going against a strong opposition offers a good benchmark. It's better than going against academy players, thinking you are doing better than you are."

While NSW will field nine Wallabies, Fisher was unapologetic for resting his biggest names in captain George Smith, Stephen Hoiles, Mark Gerrard, Julian Huxley, Clyde Rathbone and Adam Ashley-Cooper. In the squad are eight Brumbies Academy players and six new recruits.

"There's plenty we'll be looking to get out of the trial," Fisher said. "These things are not necessarily results-based. We're more interested in the process than the outcome on the scoreboard. Friday is about working on our basics, getting an indication of our fitness, gauging where our effort areas and communication are at."

McKenzie understands the need for Fisher to field fresh names, especially in the backs. "They are experimenting at number 9 and 10," he said. "But they have lost key players there in George Gregan and Stephen Larkham. And Stirling Mortlock is out [for several weeks after a shoulder reconstruction]."

Waratahs captain Phil Waugh said no matter what side the Brumbies fielded, NSW would still throw everything at them. Asked if the Waratahs should trounce ACT, Waugh, sidelined in last year's Super 14 with an ankle injury in round three, laughed and said: "Hopefully that's the plan. The guys have been training for a while now. So it is good to get out and play some football."

Waugh admitted the pain of last season - when NSW finished 13th in the Super 14 and the Wallabies were knocked out in the World Cup quarter-finals - had driven many Test players to return to Waratahs training early.

"That's why so many guys are coming back and playing early in the trials," he said. "The guys are looking forward to getting into it."

[Flamethrower]

Ahh, good old Ewen. He's a sharp little pencil

[GIGS20]

So it's all about how you word your press release and the Waratahs 'stars' are a match for the Brumbies 'Debutantes and trialists'

I guess it's all about setting yourself up in the media, so you can say (before the match) "Yeah we're throwing everything we've got at this one, treating it like a S14 fixture and seeing how we perform" (and after you've lost) "sure we didn't win it but we were up against quality opposition and we had a lot of injuries get in our way"

Come off it, you're either trialling systems and players and the result is secondary, or you're testing the strength of your squad against the strength of their squad, you can't have two bob each way, especially when the Brumbies have left out George Smith, Stephen Hoiles, Mark Gerrard, Julian Huxley, Clyde Rathbone and Adam Ashley-Cooper.