Last night on HQ they very briefly discussed Backrow balance.
Despite my love for Pocock's inclusion in the 15, at this stage I'd be leaning towards this as my starting Backrow:-
6.Fardy
7.Hooper
8.Palu / McCalman
Theoretically, Fardy/Hooper/Palu looks like the most well balanced. Fardy's work in tight perfectly offsets Hooper's ability to player wider. Palu's size and aggression gives you someone that can bend the line, make big hits and provides strong drive from the back of the scrum.
For me Palu's inclusion depends on his form and fitness come the test season. If you were to pick a side to play this weekend, you'd go with McCalman, given that he's our form no.8. Palu hasn't hit his full stride yet. I highly suspect that Palu is keeping his powder dry and trying to build towards to world cup. We might not see Palu playing well until right at the end of the season. In 2011 we saw the aging Bok players have a very poor, slow start to the season (resulting in no teams in the final from memory) but they really picked things up come test season. It always looked like design to me. I think we might see something similar with Palu. Last year he started strongly and his form fell away in the test season. He'll be trying to achieve the opposite this season. He needs to be managed early in the season and Cheika knows this.
If Fardy is unavailable things get a little bit more interesting/difficult. Currently id probably have McCalman as my back no.6., but if you decide to go with a guy like Higgers at 6, I think then you need to start looking at whether Pocock is the better option at 7.