The Barbarians (Baabaas) are facing the Wallabies at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday and it looks to be an impressive encounter.

The composite outfit come into the game on the back of a 33-26 win over England last weekend at Twickenham, while it will be the Wallabies’ first outing of their 2009 international season.

This will be the 11th match between Australia and the Barbarians since the foundation game in 1948 at Cardiff Arms Park, but it will be the first time the famous festival club plays in Australia.

The BaaBaas do not have pressure to win, but the Wallabies will be keen to kick off their season on a winning note and they may well rely on a conservative approach to grind out a win which could dent the game’s ‘exhibition’ status.

The BaaBaas would not want to get sucked into a percentages game and they will be trying to play as expansively as they can which should result in a high-scoring affair.

While BaaBaas coach Dai Young insists his side will look to entertain the capacity crowd at the Sydney Football Stadium, he made no secret of his desire to defeat the Wallabies.

“We’ll try to come into the game, we want to throw the ball about [and] we want to be entertaining but make no bones about it as well, we want to win,” he said.

(more…)