Betting tips / Matthew Burke / 14 October 2011 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

In a tight one, Matt Burke is still backing the Wallabies to take the chocolates when they meet the All Blacks in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup.

This was the game that was supposed to be the final.

Instead, we now find the southern hemisphere's two premier teams fighting it out just to make it to the ultimate decider.

Everyone is predicting the All Blacks to take the title this year but as we have seen, dangerous banana skins can appear along the way.

I think last week was the first time the All Blacks' forwards were truly pressured this tournament and what we saw were a few deficiencies. They were outmuscled at stages and the scrum was under real duress.

The massive question that hangs over the game...is Richie McCaw fit?

We are hearing rumours and we have to ask because he provides so much leadership to New Zealand, both verbally and physically.

The centres will be the key to the success of the All Blacks. The ability of Nonu and Smith to traverse the advantage line will go a long way to easing the burden on inexperienced, third-string flyhalf Aaron Cruden.

They will need to take as much heat off Cruden as possible. He will be heavily targeted, and as far as the Wallabies are concerned, rightly so. Not a big man, he will get traffic directed down his channel to make him do as much extra work as possible.

The Wallabies must build on their game from their quarterfinal victory. As we saw in that match, they can withstand an enormous amount of opposition attack, but there is only so much they can stand before cracks begin to appear. They must improve on their ball-in-hand attack to counter this.

Limited against South Africa, the Wallabies need to build phases and continuity, which means basically hanging on to the ball and not losing all that pressure that has a building effect.

Flyhalf Cooper was a liability last week and needs to lift by controlling the speed and flow of the game. He can, but will need strong influences from his skipper and scrumhalf.

Wallabies to win in a tight one, with five tries in the game