This Saturday sees Michael Cheika’s Wallabies and Heyneke Meyer’s Springboks square off at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

Naturally, only one of them will leave the changing room smiling, having tasted the sweet, succulent nectar of victory.

But the catch here is that the one truly grinning from ear to ear, edging on the point of satisfying laughter, may not be the victor, but the loser.

Call a spade a spade. This year’s Rugby Championship is the hypothetical Nevada Desert, the testing phase of what’s going to be the real atomic bomb. Both Meyer and Cheika wouldn’t mind winning the damn thing for the first time, but it wouldn’t and shouldn’t be the main goal of this year’s competition.

Steve Hansen knows this too. He is a careful man, but the All Black team he selected for their clash with the Pumas this weekend, in my view, is certainly not near full strength. Hansen also isn’t an arrogant man, he knows that Argentina can push his full strength side to the limit; his team is not one picked on the back of peaceful reassurance.

Hansen’s ensuring that the the squad he wants to take to England in a few months is sharp and fit.

Now, both Meyer and Cheika find themselves staring at a litmus test.

Cheika knows that his dual allegiances to the NSW Waratahs and Wallabies has put him in a precarious situation, he’s under close inspection from Reds, Brumbies, Rebels and Force supporters alike.

The first question he needs to answer is whether he really did manage to pull both coaching jobs off. Contrary to popular belief, neither Meyer or Hansen spent the last six months attending yoga classes, fishing, calling their peeps at home or having braais every day of the week. They were doing what national coaches do: plot and scheme.

Cheika looks a meticulous schemer to me, he just has the eyes for it. He could play the lead antagonist in the next Expendables film and I wouldn’t bat an eye. I know he was scheming, but was he scheming top secret Waratah schemes, or terrifying Wallaby plots? Was he doing both? We don’t know. For all we know, he has no clue what he’s doing with the Wallabies. We’ll just have to find out come Saturday.

The next question he’ll have to answer is whether he really does know where he’s going with the golden men of the Australasian free folk. The question ties in with the first. Has he devised a brand new Cheika 2.0 game plan for the Wallabies or has he just resigned himself to his predetermined Waratahs fate in tactics? Again it depends on whether he’s actually been giving time to his national duties and not been consumed by the sky blue blues.

If the answers to those two questions are indeed a solid ‘no’, then we can expect him to put on a very convincing Oprah Winfrey impersonation. Something along the lines of ‘You have a Wallaby jersey, you have a Wallaby jersey, we all have Wallaby jerseys!’

Adding to his woes is the fact that he currently stands at a mediocre 25 per cent winning record from four games. It’s a statistic constantly thrown in his face in comparison with Ewen McKenzie’s successful three out of four European tour in 2013. To me it’s just a little premature to judge Cheika on four Tests where he really didn’t have any prep time. On top of that he had to basically copy and paste McKenzie’s entire squad from the get-go.

Before embarking on the European invasion I wrote an article where I stated that whether the Wallabies won or lost the majority of their games up north, it should not be taken as a reflection of Cheika’s coaching capabilities.

I stand by those views.

This weekend is the true start of his national journey, the initiation of his sacred Wallaby pilgrimage. From here on out true question marks can be raised against him and should be done objectively. As stated earlier, the Rugby Championship will be used as a preparation for the World Cup, but that only applies to selection experimentation.

The game plan, the form of the patterns of play and the overall sharpness of the players should already be sorted starting this Saturday. Both the All Blacks and the Springboks know how they’ll play at the World Cup, they know where their strengths lie and they’ll try and test players in accordance with that game plan.

Cheika simply does not have enough time to mold his game plan in correlation with his players, we’re all but past that point. He should already know what game he’s going to play and pick whoever’s constructive to that end.

On the other hand, despite being an experienced campaigner, Meyer faces the same type of situation, albeit for different reasons. Despite the fact that he is the most successful Springbok coach in the last decade and that the Springboks have steadily reformed their tactics, Meyer continues to cop a high amount of criticism.

The players are too old, they say. The old heads aren’t on form, they reiterate. The Boks still play a bland, one-dimensional brand of rugby and Meyer refuses to take chances with just about anything. These are the sentiments of the general rugby fraternity in the Republic of Sunshine.

Once upon a time I was part of the ‘Get Heyneke’ bandwagon, but now it’s getting a little irritating. I disliked Meyer in 2012 because at the time he applied nothing new, nothing of consequence, nothing of substance. The Springboks kicked their kicks and played their five-metre pods like there was no tomorrow. It resulted in a mixed to bad year as the team ended third in the Rugby Championship, drew against Argentina and lost against both the Wallabies and All Blacks.

But it would be a folly to suggest that nothing has changed since then. The Springbok game, while still a work in progress, has opened up, resulting in 3.9 tries a game, the second best ratio in world rugby.

Meyer has taken risks, led no less by selecting two 20-yearold fly-halves in Johan Goosen and Handre Pollard. The first could have gone on to become a starting regular had he not been injured more days than I work in a year, and the second was given the keys to immortality by facing the premier side in the world in just his fourth and sixth Test caps.

Despite the never-ending outcries, the statistics speak for themselves. Meyer has blooded a whole lot more players than his predecessor while retaining a winning percentage of over 70 per cent.

Of course this does not mean that Meyer does not have his own faults. For example there was absolutely no real need to recall Juan Smith last year because South Africa have more than enough loose-forwards to choose from. Similarly, there was no need for Bakkies Botha because he had Eben Etzebeth, Flip van der Merwe, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Lood de Jager to choose from.

The decision to recall Gurthro Steenkamp is a mystery that numbs the brain. But what I find completely erratic and annoying is his persistence with Jannie du Plessis and JP Pietersen as neither of those even deserve to start for the Sharks in the Currie Cup. But that is a discussion for another day.

The overall consensus is that Michael Cheika and Heyneke Meyer need to prove their detractors wrong and all their detractors are from their own respective countries. This is a necessity in a World Cup year.

At the time of writing the Wallabies have yet to name their team to face the Springboks this Saturday, so bear that in mind as we look towards the big one this weekend.

It shapes up as a very interesting game for two reasons, the first being that Suncorp will be Cheika’s first home game in charge with a Wallaby team that will play the Cheika way, whatever that is. The second point of interest is the Springbok selection, particularly the midfield combination.

If I were the Wallabies, I would aim at Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel in this game. They are a young and exciting centre pairing, but they are also inexperienced and Kriel is actually a fullback.

The last time these teams met at Newlands, Tevita Kuridrani made a meal out of Jan Serfontein on defence, even though Serfontein had been a solid defender all season. Compared to de Allende and Kriel, Serfontein is an experienced campaigner and he had Jean de Villiers on his inside to help him, yet he struggled defensively. The Wallabies should take note.

The composition of the Wallaby pack will be an interesting point of interest. From what I’ve read in various articles and their respective comments, there have been stray suggestions made to Cheika about how he should engage this facet of selection.

The two favourites I’ve noted are that Cheika must either play Michael Hooper and David Pocock on both flanks, and the other that he should go all-out with size and select Rory Arnold, Will Skelton and Wycliff Palu.

I can’t say I agree with either.

It’s not uncommon for teams to choose two openside flankers, the Springboks have done so recently by selecting Francois Louw and Marcell Coetzee or Schalk Burger as their respective flankers. While it is true that Coetzee and Burger could easily be considered blindsides in their own right, both of them have been deployed in a looser type of game for the past two years, not the juggernaut, hack and smash Willem Alberts kamikaze style.

The problem with a Hooper-Pocock combo first and foremost is the neglect of a lineout option, especially if Free Willy Skelton is also in the team. Another is the loss of physicality. Yes, Australia have the tight five for that, but with the relative lightweight back row combination, all five of those tight forwards will be very preoccupied with securing the ball at the ruck once the ball carrier goes down rather than carrying the ball itself.

Hooper is good in the loose, but he is very ineffective in the tight. Realistically, Australia have about two good ball carriers to get momentum, but it will not be enough.

This is not a blight on either Pocock or Hooper or even any other Wallaby, but the Springboks possess a multitude of effective ball carriers. Tendai Mtawarira, Bismarck du Plessis, Etzebeth, Louw, Coetzee and Burger all have the size and aggression to carry the ball and to ruck and they are used interchangeably in those roles. It would be unreasonable to expect Skelton and Higginbotham to do all the carrying while the Boks have a whole pack who can do it just as well.

Regarding the ‘let’s size up’ mentality, be careful not to become the one you want to beat. Size has been the name of the Springbok game for years and the failures of this kind of team synergy are well documented.

It is important to remember that this Springbok pack is a lot more mobile than the ones of yesteryear. Matching them in size is all good and well, but if it costs the Wallabies their ability in the loose then it’s a losing situation. Balance is the key and so is the set-piece. Limiting the lineout may prove counteractive against players like Etzebeth and Victor Matfield.

For the Springboks to win, more of the same is necessary from last weekend. The Wallabies will not break as easily as the World XV, but it was a step in the right direction.

Just as De Allende and Kriel will be targeted, they will target their opponents. Both these players have the attacking abilities to make the Wallabies pay, especially De Allende.

Suncorp is not an easy place to play at, history suggests that the Wallabies will run out winners, but the Boks were the last to have won there in 2013 so anything can happen.

As mentioned earlier the coach who wins here will be smiling, but will the other be laughing?

As long as answers come from the team’s performance, the result won’t matter. No, the one who truly wins this weekend is the one who learns something new, something that made them lose today, something that will make them win the World Cup tomorrow.

I resign to fate, my head says Wallabies by eight. But my heart says Springboks by three.