The Wallabies have lobbed in Argentina to take on Los Pumas for the first time since 2002.
Once again, Robbie Deans has a selection headache after sustaining more injuries in the loss to South Africa last weekend with Berrick Barnes and Adam Ashley-Cooper joining the ever increasing team rehab stocks.
It’s almost to the point where Deans is resorting to pulling names from a hat to fill the 22 available spaces on the team sheet and called for reinforcements to bolster the squad with Rebels lock Cadeyrn Neville and Reds back Luke Morahan answering the SOS to join the squad.
Although the Wallabies can not win The Rugby Championship in 2012, the match this week still has relevance after the Wallabies dropped to third place in the ever important IRB rankings.
The Wallabies know they will be in for a tough battle against the Pumas in Rosario. The Pumas got smashed by the All Blacks last week but did not deserve the hiding that the scoreboard showed and will be out to get their maiden win.
With all those issues in mind, Robbie Deans has made five changes to the starting XV and has added some beef to the pack by selecting Sitaleki Timani at blindside flanker. Queensland Reds prop James Slipper gets his chance to impress by starting at loosehead.
In the backline Mike Harris starts at fullback in place of the injured Barnes and will assume the goal kicking duties whilst Ben Tapuai takes the place of Ashley-Cooper at outside centre. Making his Wallabies debut is the Badass Honey Badger himself, Nick Cummins at the expense of Dom Shipperley.
Both Dave Dennis and Benn Robinson have reverted to the bench which takes on a 5/2 split and will be joined by Scott Higginbotham who has seemingly recovered from the back injury that ruled him out in the warm up of last weeks game in Pretoria.
The team is:
15. Mike Harris
14. Nick Cummins
13. Ben Tapuai
12. Pat McCabe
11. Digby Ioane
10. Kurtley Beale
9. Nick Phipps
8. Radike Samo
7. Michael Hooper
6. Sitaleki Timani
5. Nathan Sharpe (C)
4. Kane Douglas
3. Ben Alexander
2. Tatafu Polota-Nau
1. James Slipper
Reserves
16. Saia Fainga’a
17. Benn Robinson
18. Dave Dennis
19. Scott Higginbotham
20. Liam Gill
21. Brett Sheehan
22. Dominic Shipperley
A reminder that daylight savings kicks in most Australian states this weekend which means the game will kick off at 10am on Sunday (AEDT).
