WE've got tickets for the Sydney and Canberra matches!!HAVING already matched the achievements of JPR, Gerald, Gareth, Barry and Merv once this year, Sam Warburton’s men have the chance to do so once again in Brisbane today.
Only once in their history have Wales beaten the Wallabies on Aussie soil.
That was back in June 1969 when Brian Price led his team to a famous 19-16 victory at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The bulk of that victorious Welsh side were to go on to establish themselves as 1970s legends, winning three Grand Slams in the space of seven years.
That’s a record which Warburton’s team replicated earlier this year, the 2012 Six Nations clean sweep supplementing those completed in 2005 and 2008.
The next question is whether they can make another slice of history by ending 43 years of hurt in Oz.
Wales have played Australia eight times on Wallaby turf since that 1969 triumph and lost on every occasion.
Not even the 1978 side which claimed the third of the Seventies Slams were successful, losing each of the Tests they played.
That team had the likes of JPR, Gerald and JJ in their ranks, as well as the Pontypool front row of Faulkner, Windsor and Price, but they still slipped up.
It was a bad-tempered two-Test showdown, with skipper Terry Cobner threatening to take his team off the field in the first Test at Ballymore after the referee warned he would dismiss Geoff Wheel.
That bruising Brisbane encounter ended in an 18-8 defeat, while the second Test in Sydney was an even more painful affair in more ways than one.
Depleted by injuries, Wales fielded full-back JPR Williams at flanker, while they lost Graham Price during the game, when he had his jaw broken by opposing prop Steve Finnane.
Yet they still would have won were it not for an infamous Paul McLean drop goal that was awarded, to give the hosts a 19-17 victory, despite seeming to go well wide of the posts.
Since that notorious ‘78 tour, Wales have been back to Oz to try their hand against the Wallabies in 1991, 1996, 2003 and 2007, each with the identical losing outcome.
In 2012 they are back again. But this time, things appear to be very different.
Not since 1978 have they travelled Down Under with such expectation upon them and not since then have they had such a realistic chance of success.
Wales have arrived in Australia as European champions, on the back of six straight victories. They also have a virtual clean bill of fitness, skipper Sam Warburton and centres Jonathan Davies and Scott Williams having recovered fitness to line up in today’s first Test at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
In contrast, the Wallabies have been hit by a string of injuries to key men, with James O’Connor, Kurtley Beale, Quade Cooper and skipper James Horwell missing.
The hosts have also had just about the worst possible preparation, having been handed a ludicrous schedule of two Tests in five days.
That was always an accident waiting to happen and so it proved on Tuesday night when Robbie Deans’ men lost 9-6 to Scotland in horizontal rain at Newcastle, north of Sydney.
Today they face significantly tougher opposition, with just a couple of training sessions to gel together a side that shows no fewer than nine changes and with the pressure mounting on under-fire Kiwi coach Deans.
By way of comparison, Wales’ preparation has been pretty spot on.
The decision to send an advance party of 16 players out last week had provoked some debate in terms of the impact it would have on the team to face the Barbarians at the Millennium Stadium.
But it has undoubtedly been vindicated. The strength in depth of the current squad was demonstrated by a largely second-string side beating the Baa-Baas, while the Test team to face the Wallabies have had time to adjust to the different time zone and prepare methodically.
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