New Zealand announce squad for Rugby Championship game against Australia
Steve Hansen is confident of his team's chances ahead of the Rugby Championship.
©Press Association
New Zealand have announced a 32-man squad that will travel to Sydney for the opening game of the Rugby Championship game against Australia on Saturday.
Loose forward Elliot Dixon has been left out of the squad and so does lock Luke Romano and Damian McKenzie. Both Romano and McKenzie will now feature for their respective teams in the Mitre 10 Cup. Apart from the three, flanker Sam Cane and prop Joe Moody failed to make the trip because of injury.
The last time these two teams met was in the final of the 2015 World Cup where the All Blacks defeated Wallabies 34-17 to win their second consecutive title. There has been no shortage of words exchanged between the two respective coaches since then with New Zealand coach Steve Hansen commenting on his counterpart that he was bullied by England coach Eddie Jones in the recent Test series between the two teams which the red rose team won convincingly by 3-0. Michael Cheika later hit back at Hansen describing the comments as "really shallow."
The Wallabies coach recently suggested that Hansen will have trouble in selecting between Aaron Cruden and Beauden Barrett at fly-half Cane, who is unavailable now due to injury and Ardie Savea which didn't go well with the former Canterbury centre.
"It's good of the Australian coach to start picking our team. I'd say he's got enough problems of his own, probably," Hansen said.
"But we'll pick ours and he can pick his and he'll have a lot to say, no doubt."
However, Cheika was quick to respond as the tension between the sides increased ahead of the Saturday's encounter.
"I don't know what he's upset about," Cheika told reporters.
"It's up to him. For us, I think we know how we're thought of.
"We know they think we're no chance to do anything and they're validated, I suppose, we haven't beaten them for ages in the series so it's understandable that they would think that."
New Zealand squad:
Forwards:
Dane Coles, Nathan Harris, Codie Taylor, Wyatt Crockett, Charlie Faumuina, Owen Franks, Kane Hames, Joe Moody, Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Brodie Retallick, Patrick Tuipulotu, Samuel Whitelock, Sam Cane, Jerome Kaino, Kieran Read, Ardie Savea, Liam Squire and Matt Todd.
Backs: Tawera Kerr-Barlow, TJ Perenara, Aaron Smith, Beauden Barrett, Aaron Cruden, Lima Sopoaga, Ryan Crotty, Malakai Fekitoa, Anton Lienert-Brown, George Moala, Israel Dagg, Waisake Naholo, Julian Savea and Ben Smith.
