All Blacks in dress rehearsal for Cup

All Black captain Richie McCaw ponders tonight's test as the team bus arrives for the captain's run yesterday. Picture / Dean Purcell

The All Blacks want to check their World Cup blueprint on the end-of-year tour to Europe. Even better at Eden Park tonight, they will meet their probable quarter-final opponents in that tournament.

Picking sporting results is a dodgy business but the thin layer of top-quality international sides offers that chance until the quarter-final stages of a World Cup.

The All Blacks will win their pool and then play the runner-up of Group D who should be either Triple Crown champion Ireland or Grand Slam winners France, in the quarter-finals.

That showdown will be on October 7 in Cardiff, an arena which is nominally neutral but could favour the Irish after Munster recently won the Heineken Cup at that venue.

How much more the All Blacks and Ireland glean about the other tonight may be governed by the weather (which is forecast to be bad) and which players survive to take part in the sixth World Cup.

The All Blacks may fill their World Cup dossiers with more information as the Irish are at near full strength on this trip while the hosts have split their resources with the alternate XV already in Argentina.

But the immediate homework for the All Black selectors will be to scrutinise the fringe candidates from tonight, those most in danger when the Tri-Nations squad is pared down to 30 players.

In tonight's starting XV, loosehead prop Clarke Dermody and centre Casey Laulala will come in for the most inspection about whether they should be retained for the Tri-Nations.

The All Black reserves will also be a shade twitchy about their immediate international future although it seems three halfbacks and three hookers will be chosen for the initial three tests against the Wallabies and Springboks.

Others to be assessed in the fringe category will be Neemia Tialata, Greg Rawlinson, Marty Holah, Craig Newby, David Hill, Scott Hamilton, Isaia Toeava and Sam Tuitupou.

Wing Sitiveni Sivivatu is already one casualty, his knee needing rehab in the provincial series rather than the Tri-Nations.

"I'm not going to go through each individual and tell you who's vulnerable and who's not," coach Graham Henry said yesterday.

The immediate concern of the All Blacks will be whether they can rectify the faults from their untidy 34-23 opening win last week in Hamilton. What is the verdict on their lineouts, the impact of their tight five and the composure needed at this level of rugby?

If predictions about the weather are correct, this match will bellow for forward endeavour, the sort of momentum the All Blacks were unable to generate last week.

The scrum should be the primary weapon with the onus on captain Richie McCaw and his lieutenants to advise referee Jonathan Kaplan about their superiority.

Halfback Byron Kelleher should be another weighty part of the arsenal with his running game suited to dragging his loose forwards into the match.

Plans A, B, C and maybe D should be about crunching ahead, forcing the Irish defence to regroup behind the ball, opening the width of the ground for the All Blacks.

The last time Luke McAlister played in a test at Eden Park, he used an array of dinky kicks on a fine day.

There was some fortune involved and a longer kicking game or up-and-unders may gain more profit tonight against the Irish back three defence.

Once the test is done, attention will switch to those All Blacks who have improved or sullied their Tri-Nations prospects. Amateur selectors should have a field day.