All Black coaches 'not worried' about dropping a game

Having delighted the purists by picking his strongest starting team, All Blacks rugby coach Graham Henry delivered them a shocking confession that he'd welcome a defeat in the coming months.

The All Blacks have never won every test in a calendar year since rugby turned professional in 1996, and are shooting for their sixth win of 2006 and 13th in a row when they play the Wallabies here on Saturday.

Despite playing away from home at the Suncorp Stadium unofficially known here as "Fortress Wallaby" they were rated $1.35 favourites by the New Zealand TAB last night, against the Wallabies' $3.

In the wake of the All Blacks' recent dominance of world rugby, much has been made in Australia and in the northern hemisphere of their uncanny knack of peaking between World Cups.

Fifteen months out from the 2007 tournament in France, which falls 20 years since the All Blacks were last crowned world champions, Henry admitted a loss at some stage this year could be a handy wake-up call.

"For the good of the side it'd be good to lose a couple, but for the psyche of the coaches it's probably not very helpful," he said after naming a full-strength starting 15.

"I think there are some advantages in losing. You probably dissect our game more and that's important, making sure everything you're doing is running smoothly.

"When you're winning all the time you may gloss over some things ... in saying that we're not asking the guys to lose. We're very keen on maintaining a high standard every time we play."

The All Blacks lost just once last year under Henry and assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith, 16-22 to the Springboks in Cape Town.

They then began the rotation policy designed to have 30 test-level players well prepared for France next year, and have managed to keep winning.

But they face their biggest challenge of the year to date on Saturday as a rejuvenated Wallabies shoot for seven consecutive wins at the 52,500-capacity Suncorp Stadium stretching back to 2003.

In their only away game this year a mix-and-match All Blacks struggled to put away Argentina 25-19 in Buenos Aires, before beating the Wallabies and Springboks at home.

Yesterday's team featured seven changes from last weekend but just one different name from the impressive 32-12 win over Australia on July 8, with lock Ali Williams in for Jason Eaton.

A rowdy Brisbane crowd is a new experience for the current All Blacks crop, with the last trans-Tasman test at the ground in 1996 -- before it was rebuilt with a bigger capacity.

"Home advantage is obviously a factor in this competition. Whether Brisbane is a greater advantage than Sydney, I don't know," Henry said.

"We haven't been in a Bledisloe Cup match here for 10 years so it's completely foreign to us."

And it wouldn't be test week without the obligatory talking up of the opposition.

For the Wallabies it is deserved after they demolished the woeful Springboks 49-0 here on July 15, although their forward pack needs to make big improvements after being dominated by the All Blacks eight in Christchurch.

With the return of Matt Giteau at No 12, who missed the Christchurch match through injury, the Wallabies have what the All Blacks have labelled the best backline in the world.

"Comments out of their camp have been few and far between this time which says something about their attitude and the fact they're steeling up and hoping to let their performance do the talking on Saturday night," assistant coach Wayne Smith said.

"They're probably in a pretty dangerous mood."

Wallabies coach John Connolly was scheduled to name his team later today.

- NZPA