Georgina Robinson is a Sports Reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald
The Wallabies will travel to the hostile South African high veld missing a host of big names, after Tatafu Polota-Nau and Will Skelton joined David Pocock and Matt Toomua on Australia's Rugby Championship casualty list.
Former Waratahs assistant coach Joe Barakat will return home from Europe to join the Western Force next season.
The next two months loom as a white-knuckle time for Australian rugby as SANZAAR narrows its focus on the Super Rugby review and World Rugby chiefs meet to unravel the Gordian knot of the international game, a global season.
The Pumas make four changes for their clash with the Wallabies, including giving a start to their man on the inside, Brumbies halfback Tomas Cubelli.
The Pumas continue their upward trajectory in The Rugby Championship and have a brutal first season in Super Rugby to thank for it.
The Wallabies have made clear their misgivings about match officials, but what do the referees think of the Wallabies? And who wins if Australia persist with their strategy?
Southern hemisphere rugby's refereeing and judicial system are under the microscope amid warnings about the sport's vulnerability to "corruption".
The same unions that agreed to the current 18-team Super Rugby model are ruing their decision one season in to it, while the surplus from a record new broadcast deal dries up at warp speed. How did we get here?
Michael Hooper has been voted the Waratahs' players' player for the fourth year running, again pipping to the post his provincial and Test team mate Israel Folau.
Fiji and other Pacific Island rugby nations have been pillaged for decades by schools, clubs and talent agents around the world in search of the next big thing. Now they're fighting back, and Australia loom as powerful new allies.
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