Smith to lead Australia A in Spring Tour opener

George Smith will make his captaincy debut when the 2006 Spring Tour officially kicks off this Wednesday night with a clash between Australia A and Ospreys in Swansea.

Smith, who has never before captained a senior rugby team, will lead an Australia A team which also features the debut of Mark Gerrard at flyhalf.

Gerrard will wear the Number 10 jersey for the first time in his career and will deputise Smith as the team’s vice captain.

The match at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium begins a seven-match Spring Tour campaign for the Wallabies, who play their opening Test against Wales at Millenium Stadium on Saturday.

Wallabies Coach John Connolly said that he was expecting to see some good individual performances in the Ospreys match, which gets under way at 6.30am Australian Eastern time on Thursday.

“A number of players will be using the Ospreys match as an opportunity to push for a place in the Test team for the rest of the Tour,” said Connolly.

“We’re expecting to see a number of players step up and make a mark during the mid-week games and put some real pressure on the Test team,” he said.

“One of the major goals of the tour is to create a highly competitive team environment as we build towards next year.”

Connolly added that George Smith’s appointment as captain was well deserved.

“I think he’s one of the senior members in the squad now and is certainly a leader in the way he plays the game,” said Connolly.

“One of our goals is to broaden our leadership group and we feel that George is ready to take on the added responsibility.”

69-Test veteran Smith said it was a huge honour to be named captain of the Australia A team for the opening match of the tour.

“I’ve never captained a team at any level so I’m very excited about being made captain of the ‘A’ team. It’s a proud achievement and I’m looking forward to the game on Wednesday,” said Smith.

Smith said that his team had trained well after arriving in Cardiff on Saturday.

“We’ve a couple of runs together as a team and we’ve been very happy with the way we’ve prepared,” he said.

“Mark Gerrard is adapting well to flyhalf and it’s also great to see some old faces return in Dave Lyons, Morgan (Turinui), and Hugh McMenimen,” he said.

“Everyone’s pretty excited about the game and each player knows that they are probably only one good performance away from a Test spot so there’s a lot of motivation to play well.”

Spring Tour - Match One

Ospreys vs Australia A
Liberty Stadium, Swansea
Wednesday night, November 1, 2006
Kick-Off: 7:30pm (GMT) 6:30am (Thu 2 Nov AEDST)

Full report available here on Thursday.