The Wallabies, recovering from a record drubbing, made five team changes on Tuesday for their Tri-Nations rugby Test series decider against holders New Zealand in Brisbane on Saturday.
Center Ryan Cross, flanker George Smith, lock Nathan Sharpe, tighthead prop Al Baxter and hooker Stephen Moore return to the starting team for the Test — the season’s third Bledisloe Cup match.
Cross, Smith, Baxter and Moore were on the reserves bench during last month’s record 53-8 loss to South Africa in Johannesburg, while Sharpe was not a member of the last squad.
Coach Robbie Deans omitted inside-center Timana Tahu, flanker Phil Waugh, utility forward Hugh McMeniman, prop Matt Dunning and hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau.
Former rugby league international Tahu and Polota-Nau have missed selection altogether. Waugh, McMeniman and Dunning were named among the replacements, which features a five-two forwards-backs split.
“Last week’s gone and we’ve got a fantastic opportunity this weekend. We will be better out of necessity and I’m very excited about this week, and very excited about this group,” Deans said. “They weren’t proud of their last outing so the priority for us is to be proud of what we leave behind this Saturday.”
The All Blacks named an unchanged team for Saturday’s clash.
New Zealand will field the same starting XV against Australia as in their previous two tournament outings.
“It’s a very competitive Tri-Nations series this year,” All Blacks coach Graham Henry said. “Every match has been more important than the one before it and this Test decides the championship.”
When Joan Monfort took photographs of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar almost 17 years ago, he knew the long-haired young man would make it big in soccer. He could not have imagined the little boy would as well. The baby in the photos — which have gone viral — was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind, who at 16 is showing such promise that he is already being compared with the greats. He is the youngest person to have played for Spain and the youngest to compete in the European Championship. The long-forgotten photo from 2007
Taiwanese tennis ace Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jan Zielinski of Poland on Friday advanced to the mixed doubles final at Wimbledon, just one step away from clinching their first mixed doubles title at the tournament. Hsieh and Zielinski, who won the Australian Open title earlier this year and who had reached the semi-finals at the French Open, battled past second seeds Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand 7-6, (7/0), 6-3. In the first set, the Taiwanese-Polish duo saved a set point, pushing the set into a tiebreaker. They clinched the set by winning the tiebreaker with seven straight points. The duo
CHALLENGE SET: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Poland’s Jan Zielinski are to play against New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe in the mixed doubles semi-finals Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and her Polish partner, Jan Zielinski, on Thursday advanced to the mixed doubles semi-final at Wimbledon in a tight battle that ended in a super tiebreaker. The seventh-seeded duo, who won the Australian Open mixed doubles title earlier this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open, needed 125 minutes to beat Britain’s Jamie Murray and the US’ Taylor Townsend 7-6, 6-7 (10-5). Hsieh and Zielinski took the first set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreaker and seemed poised to close out the match in the second set tiebreaker when they took a 4-0 lead. With the Taiwan-Poland
Modern pentathlon has obstacles ahead as it bids farewell to the horse at the Paris Olympics and prepares for a future more familiar to fans of Ninja Warrior and Tough Mudder. The blend of fencing, freestyle swimming, show jumping, pistol shooting and cross-country running caused a commotion at the 2021 Tokyo Games when a German coach struck a horse that refused a fence. The sport was dropped from the initial list for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, but reinstated after the governing Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), led by 77-year-old German Klaus Schormann, decided the equestrian element would be replaced by