With the Wallabies limbering up before the Lions series , and the New Zealand Maori effectively playing an All Black trial , the action at Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday evening promises to be of test match intensity. A friendly it isn't.

The All Black training squad has been in camp all week, but coach Wayne Smith has made it clear that players can be added and subtracted as the international season unfolds.This offers hope in particular to Maori skipper and no8 Deon Muir , in superb Super 12 form but overlooked by Smith in favour of incumbent Ron Cribb. Muir was unlucky but Smith's logic sound enough. Cribb made an impact in 2000 and made progress on the test scene. He had a disappointing season in the dysfunctional Blues' squad but that is no reason to cut losses on the investment made in him last year.However, in an intriguing piece of selection , made inevitable once Muir had been made Maori skipper, Cribb finds himself on the bench and Smith could find himself with a delicate problem if Muir carries his Super 12 form forward.

The other back row positions in the Maori side also offer some interesting options for Smith to consider. Troy Flavell at blindside, surely the position in which he will come to rest sooner or later, and Taine Randell at openside, with a genuine no7, Matua Parkinson , starting on the bench. The Brumbies' George Smith will provide the former All Black skipper with a searching test of his skills but he is a classy footballer, much underestimated in my opinion, and will want to make his mark.

Norm Maxwell is short of football after an injury- interrupted Super 12 so gets some much-needed game time here. It is not inconceivable that his second row partnership with Mark Cooksley will be the one that Smith sends into All Black action against Manu Samoa back in Auckland next weekend.In the front row Waikato's young prop Deacon Manu, so impressive in John Mitchell's debut season, has most to gain and many observers will be eager to see how he copes with this further step-up in his career.

Has Smith dropped hints that he wants a serious look at Carlos Spencer at full back ? He played in that position for his Ponsonby club last weekend, but was the fly half in the last test the All Blacks played , against Italy in November.To put it kindly, he had an indifferent Super 12 campaign, but of the three fly halves available to Maori coach Matt te Pou, David Hill and Glen Jackson being the others, experience, talent and class would all suggest that he should have started this game at no 10.Unless Smith has had a part to play.

I doubt that Rod MacQueen quite expected a warm-up match against opposition containing 12 All Blacks in its starting XV.The Maori have their long winning sequence to lose , but the Wallabies risk reputations and credibility on the night following the Lions' debut in Perth. However, it does give him a chance of a meaningful workout as he seeks to reconstitute a side that has not played test football since November, when Larkham and Gregan were missing, and which has lost Jason Little and David Wilson following their moves to English club rugby.

The debate about the starting full back seems to have been resolved in favour of Chris Latham, on the basis of recent form the only decision MacQueen could reasonably have made.Andrew Walker presumably gets the start on the wing not just because he might be just as good a goalkicker as Matt Burke but also a better winger. Just in case his goalkicking form in the Super 12 final was a flash in the pan Elton Flatley is presumably included as insurance, unless he is the first choice kicker, but he made his mark this season at fly half and will cover Stephen Larkham if his dodgy knees play up.

Phil Waugh somehow managed to get the award as the best Australian Super 12 player of the year, but George Smith seems certain to get the bigger prize of the Wallaby no7 jersey come the Lions tests.With formidable locking resources at his disposal , MacQueen fields the two who will be crucial if the Lions' battery of second rowers is to withstood, Eales and Giffin.The latter was magnificent towards the end of the Super 12 when he was at last free of the injuries that had earlier plagued him.

This is the most powerful Maori side to take the field in years, and the significance of the occasion for them cannot be underestimated. I have probably done them a disservice by emphasizing the All Black ramifications of this match rather than the purely Maori dimensions , but it would be naïve to pretend their performance will have no bearing on Wayne Smith's thinking for the season ahead. The Wallabies, in Sydney, must be favourites, and I would expect them to win by 10 points , but they will know they have been in a game.

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