The three key battlegrounds for the Wallabies and All Blacks at Eden Park

Let’s just have this said from the outset: the All Blacks, the second-ranked team in the world, are massive favourites at their fortress, Eden Park, for Saturday’s Bledisloe fixture.

The now sixth-ranked Wallabies haven’t beaten the All Blacks since November 2020, when Reece Hodge was playing at flyhalf, and the Wallabies haven’t beaten the All Blacks at Eden Park for 40 years, since 1986.

Funnily enough, the Wallabies were ranked seventh in 2020 when they beat the All Blacks, so while anything is possible, the facts remain: the Wallabies are rightfully massive underdogs here.

While many New Zealanders may claim that the injuries to captain Ardie Savea, flyhalves Ruben Love and Richie Mo’unga, as well as Tamaiti Williams, Luke Jacobson, and Patrick Tuipulotu, are fatal.

Wallabies fans must be quick to remember that Will Skelton, Langi Gleeson, Carter Gordon, Hunter Paisami, Tom Hooper, Josh Canham, and Taniela Tupou are all missing for Australia.

While Australia are missing more players, it all comes back to depth, and where these sides are ranked.

The second-ranked All Blacks missing six of their potential starters/matchday 23 compared to the sixth-ranked Wallabies missing seven is not even comparable.

The Wallabies are broadly known to lack depth; that is not a tag that dogs the All Blacks. While losing Love and, particularly, captain Savea are savage blows for the team’s continuity, they are nonetheless succeeded by very able and tested replacements.

So let’s leave any narrative that ‘this is the best opportunity the Wallabies will get to win’ aside and focus on the footy that will be played.

Let’s look at the parts of the game the Wallabies and All Blacks will truly look to either find their own rhythm or disrupt the other’s.

Team Form

Last 5 Games

43 - 28

29 - 24

33 - 26

35 - 41

16 - 33

42 - 38

28 - 28

21 - 27

56 - 17

32 - 35

2

Wins

4

3

Streak

1

24

Tries Scored

26

-4

Points Difference

52

3/5

First Try

3/5

1/5

First Points

3/5

1/5

Race To 10 Points

4/5

The lineout

The Wallabies’ set piece, scrum and lineout, has been a real source of strength in 2026.

At scrum time, no matter the opposition, Springboks, France, or Ireland, the Wallabies have held their own and, at times, dominated.

At the lineout, the Wallabies have been extraordinary, and the numbers truly do back this up.

In July, the Wallabies and All Blacks played the same three opponents: France, Ireland, and Italy.

The All Blacks averaged an 82% lineout success rate, with a high of 86% against Ireland in their final game of the July Nations Championship leg.

Against the same three opponents, the Wallabies averaged a 92% lineout success rate, with a high of 100% against France and a low of 89% against Italy.

Against the Springboks in the Greatest Rivalry Tour, the All Blacks averaged a lineout success rate of 84%, with a high of 92% in Soweto for game three and a low of 79% in game 1, where the Kiwis won.

For the Wallabies, in their two games against Japan, two games against Argentina, and the one game against the Springboks, the Wallabies averaged a lineout success rate of 92%.

They had a high of 100% against Japan and a low of 88% against Argentina.

The Wallabies have secured an average of 90 per cent plus at the lineout across two separate head coaches in just eight games this year.

It shows that the lineout coach, Tom Donnelly, and the players are really across their detail.

This is an area the Wallabies should look to target the All Blacks in, and this in turn should shape their kicking strategy.

Any ball that is not a genuine contestable, either via a box kick or a high hoist, and if not a long kick into the All Blacks 22m line, must go out one way or another.

The Wallabies must work to create as much static competition as possible.

Every lineout must be fought over, create a contest, deny quick throw-ins, and fight the All Blacks at every set piece.

The Wallabies are the team that will want to slow down the play down, not to mitigate, but rather because that’s how they show their strength.

The All Blacks will look for any opportunity to avoid this contest.

Post-contact meterage

While the big lads will be going to town in the set piece, they still need to do a job in phase play, and getting on the front foot for both sides will be crucial.

Against the three July opponents that the All Blacks and Wallabies both faced- France, Ireland, and Italy- the numbers are as follows.

The All Blacks managed an average post-contact metres of 2.1m per carry.

Against the same opposition, the Wallabies managed 2.4m per carry.

In the GRT the All Blacks averaged an impressive 2.8m per carry, a little below the Boks’ 3.0m.

In the five Tests against Japan, Argentina, and the Springboks, the Wallabies averaged 2.3m per carry, so half a metre less than the All Blacks managed against the Boks.

This does not bode well for the Wallabies heading into this fixture.

The Wallabies managed 2.1m per carry against the Boks in Perth, well below the average 2.8m for the All Blacks against the same opposition, but the Wallabies should use that as fuel for greater deeds rather than putting their gun in the holster.

The facts nonetheless remain: the Wallabies will have to up their game, find weak shoulders, and really utilise forward momentum should they get it, because the numbers suggest they don’t generate their own go-forward too often.

For context, the gold standard at Test level is somewhere between 3m-4m per carry, so there is a bit to go for both sides here.

Similarly, during the GRT, the All Blacks made a whopping 34 line breaks, averaging 8.5 per game, whilst the Wallabies averaged just 7.2 per game during Les Kiss’s tenure.

However, what should be noted here is that the All Blacks conceded an average of 7.2 per game as well during those matches.

Meanwhile, the Wallabies have conceded an average of just 5.2 linebreaks per game.

Perhaps the most impressive stat is that the All Blacks beat 32 defenders on average against the Boks in the GRT, with the Springboks beating 22 defenders in turn.

The Wallabies have beaten an average of 25 defenders per game, beating their second-highest number of defenders against the Boks in Perth, beating 23.

While these numbers look very high, the Springboks defence does not put a premium on making first-up tackles when flying off the line in their blitz-defence system, so expect these numbers to be much lower.

Both the Wallabies and the All Blacks operate varied types of connected linespeed, with each having its own foot-speed variations and moments of sting in their tackles.

All these numbers are to show that the Wallabies have a bit of work to do in the loose when it comes to the confrontation side of things.

However, the All Blacks, with their hugely reshuffled side, 12 changes to the side that played in Baltimore, are by no means guaranteed the same numbers and triumphs as they enjoyed against the Boks’ defensive system.

Nor are the Wallabies expected to hit their own heights against the second-best team in the world at fortress Eden Park.

The aerial game

This part of the game needs no numbers, stats or graphs; the Wallabies have grown this part of the game slowly but surely into what culminated in the dominant aerial performance in Perth over the Springboks.

The Boks are broadly recognised as the best exponents of the aerial game, and although the Wallabies only faced one of the two wingers who usually start, the Wallabies were nonetheless dominant.

The All Blacks are currently employing a method where the winger on the side receiving the kick retreats and catches the ball facing their own tryline.

Against the Boks, they had decent success; they caught some balls but were smashed in the tackle and driven backwards.

While it is unknown if the All Blacks would’ve had better or worse results had they contested the high balls the conventional way, with a player coming forward onto the ball, it is nonetheless an issue for the All Blacks.

The benefit of having a winger chase back for a catch is twofold; you don’t get penalised for ‘escorting’ your own catcher whilst jostling with the opposition catcher, and you can stay in the defensive line longer so as not to give the opposition that space to run into.

Despite the logical reasons for it to work, you still need to jump, and that mechanic is what has been so difficult for the All Blacks, and that is where the Wallabies have been so good.

While the Wallaby wingers Max Jorgensen and Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii have been improving quickly at the high ball, they both have their unique ways of doing it.

Suaalii is an over-the-head catcher, which, at 196 cm, gives him a big advantage over almost everyone he comes up against, meanwhile Jorgensen is much more a leap and catch it in the breadbasket kind of guy.

Both have been equally effective to date, and both pose a genuine problem for their opposites in Will Jordan and Leroy Carter at Eden Park.

Winning back a contestable kick is as good as a linebreak, which is why the Springboks have made it such a big part of their game.

It resets the defensive shape of the opposition, allowing playmakers to pick off lazy or exhausted defenders a lot more easily as they retreat.

The Wallabies must use this around the 50m mark and keep the All Blacks retreating; too often, the Wallabies have overplayed in their own half, but it is an area of the game they are getting better at quickly.

For the All Blacks, the addition of Beauden Barrett at fullback, with Cam Roigard and Damien McKenzie in the halves, as well as Jordie Barrett at no.12, means the All Blacks have several kicking threats, giving them plenty of weapons to punish the Wallabies for poor kicking in midfield.

Genuine contestables or hoofing it into the All Blacks’ 22m line or out are the only options the Wallabies can use when putting boot to ball; otherwise, the Wallabies will be in for a world of pain.

While the Wallabies are massive underdogs in this contest, these are the areas of the game they must target to have any hope of being in the contest come the full-time whistle.