There’s one fantastic and much awaited rugby match this
weekend – and no Wallabies are involved.

The All Blacks v England
match should be a beauty, particularly for southern hemisphere rugby fans
wanting revenge over the English scrum-scrum-and-not-much-else game. It will be
a platform for the Blacks to show it is possible to run and scrum.

Meanwhile there’s a sideshow event in Dublin
that will have bearing on which team might be able to claim 5th or 6th
place in the rankings.

The main news ahead of the also-rans game is that Wallaby
coach Eddie Jones probably lost whatever support he had left by dropping Chris
Whittaker from the Wallabies bench this weekend.

Peter Jenkins in the Daily Telegraph tells it straight – Jones sacked a halfback who didn’t deserve to be sacked.

His reasoning is that Matt Henjak – the player who had to be
sent home from South Africa
– needs to be blooded for the 2007 World Cup.

But as every barking dog knows except Eddie, if Chris
Whittaker is going to be past it for 2007, the 18-months-older George Gregan
definitely will be as well.

Gregan has not been the Wallabies’ main problem this year –
the coach has – but he has not done enough to keep his place in the team.
Whittaker and Henjak both deserved a shot.

The move smacks of a coach who knows he’s going anyway.

Australia
should nevertheless win against an Irish team that’s not at its best either,
simply because their scrum isn’t a top-four unit either and our backs are much
better.