Australia v England: Wallabies plan to gatecrash England’s meeting with referee before second Test

There is barely a single rugby union fixture between Australia and England that goes by without one side or another – or, often, both – moaning to high heaven about the scrum, and the feverish run-up to Saturday’s second Test in Melbourne has been no different.

The Wallabies’ head coach Michael Cheika took the highly unusual step of saying he would sit in on his England counterpart Eddie Jones’s pre-match meeting with the referee, Craig Joubert, to make sure every conceivable message and instruction over the packs’ imminent confrontation at AAMI Park was received and understood.

Heard the one about the two Aussies and the South African official discussing the crouch, bind and set? There were unlikely to be many laughs in the room, even if Cheika and Jones are old buddies.

“The rules say that if you ask for a meeting, the other team is invited if they want to take up that opportunity and we figured we would,” said Cheika, the 2015 world coach of the year whose Australia team remains ranked number two on the planet, with England moving up to third (overtaking South Africa) after last week’s thrilling, first-ever win for the tourists in Brisbane, by 39 points to 28.

The response from Steve Borthwick, the England forwards coach who has been pretty much covered in glory since his appointment in the new Jones cohort in January, was typically deadpan. “If they [Australia] want to come along, that's fine," said Borthwick. “In my experience it hasn't happened before [but] it's a question for them. Craig Joubert is one of the world's best refs and we have every confidence he will ref the game and the scrum well."

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It is a mere eight months and one meeting between the teams since the Wallabies’ scrum got on top of England’s in the pivotal World Cup pool match won by the Wallabies at Twickenham. On that occasion the pressure on England’s then loosehead prop Joe Marler had been ramped up by public criticism from the former Australia coach Bob Dwyer. And old “Barbed Wire” has been at it again in recent days, describing the scrummaging of England’s venerable tighthead, Dan Cole, as “illegal”. Marler is thousands of miles from Melbourne, on a self-imposed rest, but on Thursday he received a formal warning from the Rugby Football Union for his short and not at all sweet description of Dwyer on Twitter.

Meanwhile Cole, the loosehead incumbent Mako Vunipola and the captain Dylan Hartley – whose 74th Test appearance will take him past Steve Thompson as England’s most-capped hooker – have maintained a collective stiff upper lip, possibly while suppressing smiles of satisfaction.

Cheika’s team selection as Australia fight to save the three-match series could hardly have been more swingeing. Both props Scott Sio and Greg Holmes were dropped, together with the second row Rob Simmons, and replaced by James Slipper, Sekope Kepu and Sam Carter respectively. Slipper and Kepu have 139 Test caps between them. A fourth change sees Melbourne Rebels’ Sean McMahon start his first Test in Australia on his home ground in place of the injured No.8 David Pocock.

Elsewhere, it should not be overlooked that Australia doled out four Test debuts last week, and they are missing a constellation’s worth of backline stars in Matt Giteau, Kurtley Beale, Matt Toomua, Drew Mitchell, Quade Cooper, Will Genia, Nic White, Henry Speight and Adam Ashley-Cooper. To put four tries past England in Brisbane – two of them from Michael Hooper, the flanker who does a Mike Yarwood-standard impression of a centre – was near incredible in the circumstances, and says much for innate Aussie ability.

England cannot worry about the Wallabies’ woes. The tourists’ response, with an Australian past master Glen Ella beavering away as backs coach, has been to recall Bath’s George Ford at fly-half from the start, jettisoning Luther Burrell, and shifting Owen Farrell to inside centre to re-establish the midfield combination with Jonathan Joseph that played throughout the Six Nations-winning campaign in February and March. It should tighten the defence without diminishing the threat in attack.

The other alteration (apart from a substantial reshuffle of the bench, with a shift to a six-two split) sees one Brisbane try-scorer take over from another as Jack Nowell of Exeter starts in preference to Harlequins’ Marland Yarde, the man he replaced in the second half last week. “It’s great to have someone else who has the same mindset out there, at No.12,” the returning Ford said of Farrell. “The challenge this week is going to be tougher as Australia will be gunning to get one back on us.”