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Wallaby loosehead prop James Slipper has been named as captain of the Wallabies for this weekend’s historic test against the USA Eagles in Chicago, Illinois. Having debuted in 2010 the Australian will play for his country for the 68th time.
Slipper is to lead a much changed side to that from recent internationals with a number of players being rested including regular captain Stephen Moore. He will join Greg Holmes and Tatafu Polota-Nau in a new-look front-row under the guidance of former Puma Mario Ledesma.
Fijian Taquele Naiyaravoro has been named on the bench and will make hias international debut for his adopted country. He had been in Fiji’s plans for the World Cup. A second Fijian, Henry Speight, has been named at outside center.
This Saturday’s international at Chicago’s Soldier Field will be refereed by South African Jaco Peyper with the three remaining officials are from the Americas. Argentine Joaquín Montes and Canadian Dave Smortchevsky will be the assistants while Canadian Andrew McMaster is the TMO.
Kick-off at Soldier Field is scheduled for 6:40pm local time.
Australia and the USA will play in different groups at the World Cup with the Wallabies in Pool A, the goup of death together with England, Fiji, Uruguay and Wales. Their first match will be against Fiji in Cardiff on Wednesday September 23. The Eagles will play in Pool B, a group also containing Japan, Samoa, South Africa and Scotland. The North Americans will begin against Samoa on Saturday September 20 in Brighton.
Australia
15 Kurtley Beale, 14 Joe Tomane, 13 Henry Speight, 12 Matt Giteau, 11 Rob Horne , 10 Bernard Foley, 9 Nick Phipps, 8 Wycliff Palu, 7 Sean McMahon, 6 Ben McCalman, 5 Rob Simmons, 4 Kane Douglas, 3 Greg Holmes, 2 Tatafu Polota-Nau, 1 James Slipper (Captain)
16 James Hanson, 17 Scott Sio, 18 Toby Smith, 19 Dean Mumm, 20 Sam Carter, 21 Quade Cooper, 22 Will Genia, 23 Taqele Naiyaravoro
