Giteau's time to shine approaches

Wayne Smith, Lyon | September 08, 2007

WHILE Japan braces itself for the first onslaught of Stirling Mortlock here tonight, it might just be the real danger in the Wallabies' World Cup backline comes from the considerably less physically imposing figure on his inside shoulder, Matt Giteau.

There is no denying that Mortlock's rampaging midfield run to set up Scott Staniforth's match-winning try against New Zealand in Melbourne in June has catapulted the Australia captain into the world's imagination.

The world is not used to seeing such sheer power and aggression unleashed against the All Blacks and the accolades have flooded in.

Former NZ captain Tana Umaga paid him what he no doubt considered the ultimate compliment by suggesting Mortlock would be an All Black if he had had the good fortune to be born on the other side of the ditch.

England's World Cup-winning skipper Martin Johnson hailed him as the instigator of Australia's resurrection while any number of other critics were quick to jump ships and claim Mortlock had overtaken Ireland's Brian O'Driscoll as the game's best outside centre.

Meanwhile, Giteau stealthily continues to come in under the radar, as he is well-equipped to do at only 178cm and 85kg. This has been a quiet year by Giteau's boisterous standards, due mainly to the fact the Wallabies coaches have identified that a cut-out pass from Steve Larkham to Mortlock, bypassing him, is the simplest means of outflanking the backrow cover defence and getting over the advantage line.

It is a ploy the Australians have milked hard, so much so that the rest of the world must surely have red-flagged the Mortlock threat by now. The time has come to introduce the variation - Giteau.

If there has been a criticism of Giteau's game this season, it has been of his seemingly passive acceptance of his role as a set-piece decoy. The belief is growing that even though he is only 24, he tonight will reach twice that number of Test caps, and should start exercising his seniority by demanding more of the ball.

Giteau doesn't accept that. Forthright though he is in speaking up for himself, he believes he must pick his moment and that little will be served by him shouting at Larkham to send more possession his way.

"We've set in place some ways of getting around that," Giteau said. "There are times obviously when we just use Stirlo but there are other times, which we've worked on this week, when I can get my hands on the ball a little more."

Although a lot of ball was sent Giteau's way off the set-pieces against the Springboks in Cape Town in June, mostly he accepts that defences are too well-set, too organised for him to be especially effective in first phase.

"Multi-phase is when I'm looking to get the ball a bit more. But it depends on how we want to play and who we're playing against," Giteau said.

Against Japan, the Wallabies will want to play direct and uncomplicated. If this was a sumo contest, it would be the big fat guy against the little fat guy, with the Australians having to make certain they take full advantage of the size mismatch and don't allow the game to turn tricky.

In the more familiar context of a cricket match, the Wallabies have to be wary they don't try to score at Gilchrist-like pace and leave themselves exposed to the kind of upset Ireland pulled at Pakistan's expense at the previous World Cup.

"I don't think we want to be too fast out of the blocks," said second-rower Nathan Sharpe, broadening the sporting analogies even further.

"We'd like to get certain aspects of our performance together. We have to be realistic. We're not going to have a precise 80 minutes of football. But what we need to do is set ourselves up to play well in a week's time against Wales and then build to a crescendo, like we did in 2003."

Japan, which recently trailed only 6-3 at half-time against a Junior All Blacks side that put a half-century against Australia A, has both a proud and a poor World Cup history.

It has only won one match at the tournament, against a hapless Zimbabwe in 1991, but it repeatedly has embarrassed well-credentialled tier one nations, France among them.

Its coach, former All Blacks winger John Kirwan, has no doubt what awaits his side tonight. "We've seen Australia play many times," Kirwan said.

"(George) Gregan and Larkham are key players, but the whole team is competitive. They are the second-best team in the rankings. They'll be strong across the board."

Kirwan already has prepared his parting word to his players.

Shinjiru. Believe.