Australia and New Zealand have both shown they have attacking flair but the Tri Nations championship and the Bledisloe Cup could be decided by which nation shows the strongest defence this weekend in Wellington.
Both sides have respect for each other's attacking ability, after 10 tries were scored in their classic game last month in Sydney - won 39-35 by New Zealand.
"They're a very well balanced team, a very good attacking unit and one of the issues with the All Blacks is that if they get half a break they tend to go with it and generally score," said Wallabies coach Rod Macqueen.
All Black hooker Anton Oliver is just as favourable in his praise of the Wallabies: "The Australians play at such pace that its really hard to organise a defence to accurately stop them," he said.
New Zealand lead the Tri-Nations competition with two wins and nine points to Australia's one win and six points. South Africa have yet to muster a win or a point.
Australian must win to stay alive in the competition, as well as retain the Bledisloe Cup and they know they cannot afford a repeat of the Sydney match when they fell 24-0 behind after just eight minutes.
Australia spent the rest of that game catching up, only to see winger Jonah Lomu waltz over in the corner in injury time to win the game for New Zealand.
"Obviously the most crucial parts of the game we let ourselves down in were the start and the finish. Outside of that I think we played pretty well but you have to be constant throughout the whole game," said captain John Eales.
Macqueen said the Australians could not target individual game breaking players, such as Lomu, because the home side was talented all over.
"I don't think you can concentrate on any particular person because if you do that you open up gaps in other areas," said the coach.
On the All Black side, there is a strong desire to win back the Bledisloe Cup - lost in 1998 - as much as tie up the Tri-Nations trophy in front of 37,000 fans.
"We've got a chance to get a big piece of silverware back," said outhalf Andrew Mehrtens, who said he has been working hard to improve his own occasionally less-than-robust tackling technique.
"I don't know if we can guarantee high scoring but I'd say both teams will attempt to play the same sort of game. It's the most effective game for both of us."
NEW ZEALAND: C Cullen; T Umaga, A Ieremia, P Alatini, J Lomu; A Mehrtens, J Marshall; C Hoeft, A Oliver, K Meeuws, T Blackadder (captain), N Maxwell, T Randell, J Kronfeld, R Cribb. Replacements: L MacDonald, T Brown, B Kelleher, R Thorne, T Flavell, C Dowd, M Hammett.
AUSTRALIA: C Latham; S Mortlock, D Herbert, J Little, J Roff; S Larkham, G Gregan; R Harry, M Foley, F Dyson, D Giffin, J Eales (captain), M Connors, D Wilson, J Williams. Replacements: B Tune, R Kafer, S Cordingley, T Kefu, M Cockbain, G Panoho, J Paul.
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