Wallabies team confirmed for second Bledisloe Cup clash against New Zealand

Alongside him in Perth against the All Blacks will be 25-year-old playmaker Tane Edmed, playing his fourth Test, trying to shake off the nightmare of his starting debut against Argentina in Sydney three weeks ago.

In between them is the task of preventing the All Blacks from winning a record 11 consecutive games against the Wallabies, while keeping their slim hopes alive of winning The Rugby Championship.

Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has opted to change his starting halves yet again, a consistent theme over his two-year tenure and for years before.

After James O’Connor made some errors in last week’s loss in Auckland, Schmidt has thrust Edmed into the No.10 jersey despite keeping him on the bench for the entire 80 minutes at Eden Park.

A fully fit Jake Gordon returns just in time, with Tate McDermott out for the year with a hamstring injury, and the Wallabies have their fifth different halves partnership in as many games, not fielding the same No.9 and No.10 since Nic White and O’Connor took on South Africa in August.

“With the experience that James brings, we still see that as being important coming off the bench, and he and Nic White and Tom Lynagh have all been helping Tane to prepare himself,” Schmidt said.

The coach defended Edmed’s patchy performance in Sydney, his first Test start, that saw him charged down by Pumas captain Julian Montoya for a try against the run of play, while colliding with White in a fumbled ball.

“I felt Tane was pretty unlucky in the Argentinian Test, the distance back from Montoya was a little bit tight and caught him unawares, but apart from that he actually did some really good things,” Schmidt said.

“And Whitey would tell you himself that he got in the way of the goal line dropout that Tane tries to catch.

“He had some really good moments, some really good passing moments, obviously hit the 50-22, and he’s built into the week really confident, really confidently and we’ve got confidence in him.

“Tom didn’t quite get to where we needed him to be, or where he was comfortable to go top speed, and you can’t afford to go into an All Black Test match if you’re not moving at top speed.

“So unfortunately Tom isn’t yet available. We’d be hoping that he will be available by the time we depart on the spring tour.”

And how did 36-year-old Slipper tell teammates this weekend’s game would his last in the gold jersey – some emotional speech after training, clinking of glasses after team dinner?

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“Just in a typical Slippy way, just dropped the message on the chat, he doesn’t like any attention,” fellow prop Allan Alaalatoa revealed.

“He’s achieved a few milestones as we all know, and he just wants to keep scraping it to the side and put the team first, and that was just the old typical fashion of Slippy, just to send out a text saying, ‘Yeah boys, my last one. Love ya.’”

The All Blacks have also made several changes, some due to injury, with Damian McKenzie replacing Beauden Barrett at five-eighth, Quinn Tupaia replacing a “banged up” Billy Proctor at outside centre, and Leicester Fainga’anuku on the wing, while Peter Lakai starts at No.8 and Wallace Sititi comes off the bench.