Jones turns attention away from Australia's spotlight

Eddie Jones, the embattled coach of the reigning world champions, needs all the help he can get. If he says that Chris White, who will referee the collision between Australia and New Zealand, is excellent at his job it is because he hopes the Englishman will award the Wallabies any 50-50 decisions.

Similarly Jones, reflecting on Wales's performances, clutched at another straw in comparing Australia's uneven progress to that of the Welsh. "Wales have been very interesting," he said. "If you watch them in the pool games you would never have thought they could have extended New Zealand and England. They played two exceptional 30-minute periods of football, absolutely exceptional, which has changed the World Cup from being very moderate to becoming exceptional. What I'm saying is that it comes down to the performance on the night. We only need it to be there on Saturday night and we believe we have the game to beat New Zealand.''

If so, it has been a closely guarded secret, for the Wallabies have shown little evidence they have either the game or the personnel to upset the All Blacks. The only thing consistent about them is that they have been under-performing on a grand scale. Old South Wales have played more dynamic rugby in half an hour in Sydney and Brisbane than New South Wales have managed in five hours.

Jones came out with another extraordinary remark when he said that nobody had expected Australia, apart, that is, from the whole of Australia, to reach the semi-finals.

According to the Ireland coach, Eddie O'Sullivan, Australia are operating adversely under intense pressure. "They are a very, very good rugby team," O'Sullivan said. "I've been looking to Australia to see what Ireland can get out of it because they maximise their potential brilliantly, but I think there's been a pressure-cooker build for them with the World Cup in Australia. Expectations are huge. The negative reaction to them winning games has been incredible and the pressure on the players and the coaching staff has been abnormal. It's really working against them. That can strangle any team or anybody. They are being suffocated by the expectation within the country.''

Notwithstanding the fact that the Wallabies are expected to wage war with the All Blacks pack, they no longer possess a hard core of world-class players on which their successful campaign in 1999 was based.

George Gregan's service has been slow, which in turn seems to have affected his partner Stephen Larkham who has had a very quiet World Cup. Carlos Spencer and Justin Marshall, on the other hand, are one of the most dangerous partnerships in the tournament, although Jones has been saying that Spencer will be targeted as a weak link.

David Lyons at No 8 is no Toutai Kefu. In fact, he is no Jerry Collins. The Australian line-out should be strengthened with the return of Justin Harrison but it was badly exposed by Scotland who won 26 to 11, three of them on Australian throws. Ali Williams and Chris Jack are exceptional performers in the New Zealand second row.

It is in the back three where Australia are least convincing. Jones has staked heavily on the ex-rugby league players, Mat Rogers, Wendell Sailor - "What do we do with the shrunken Sailor?'' said one unpatriotic headline - and Lote Tuqiri and they have looked all at sea. None has the experience or class of Joe Roff, the wing who turned the 2001 Lions series in Australia's favour, yet he is on the bench along with another proven performer, Nathan Grey.

The All Blacks, who won the inaugural competition at home in 1987 when the Wallabies were not a major player, retain the side that effectively silenced South Africa 29-9 in Melbourne last week even though the vice-captain, Tana Umaga, has recovered from a serious knee injury.

"It's been close to five or six weeks since he played any rugby and he's really not sharp enough," John Mitchell, the New Zealand coach, said. "It's going to take a massive performance to succeed. This is Australia; they're playing the World Cup in their own country; they are the defending world champions; and we as New Zealanders, and especially this side, will never underestimate an Australian team. It would be absolutely foolish to do so. They have more attacking threats than any other opposition we have faced in this World Cup.''

Instead of moving to Sydney to prepare for the semi-final, the All Blacks have spent most of the week at St Kilda in Melbourne, avoiding the media scrum. "There's no way we'll get home playing at the level we've been at because we're going to encounter something totally different to anything we've encountered to date,'' Robbie Deans, the All Blacks coaching co-ordinator, said.

"For us to succeed this weekend we're going to have to play better than we've been doing so far. The Australians are an intelligent side, they really probe for weaknesses and who knows what they're concocting? We're going to have to be alert defensively and really use the ball that we get because they're a side that perseveres.''

The two countries, who know each other intimately through the Tri-Nations, have met only once in the World Cup, the Wallabies winning 16-6 in 1991. In Sydney in July, Australia were hammered 51-20 but the following month turned in an altogether different performance before losing 21-17 in Auckland.

"New Zealand have been good in the World Cup, there's also been some scratchy performances," Jones said. "They must be feeling the pressure of living up to the hopes of a rugby-mad nation desperate to see the Webb Ellis Cup returning to New Zealand." That is probably true but the same goes double for the hosts, who look in danger of making a premature exit from their own party.