Wallabies five-eighth Matt Giteau is bracing himself for a physical battering from South Africa in Australia's opening Tri-Nations clash at Subiaco Oval on Saturday night.

Giteau will face enormous pressure from the aggressive world champions, who have selected crash-tackling No.10 Butch James as his opposite number and whose forwards launched an all-out offensive on New Zealand in the opening two Tests of the series.

"It's a Test match so I think it's going to be a physical game whether you're targeted or not," Giteau told reporters.

"It comes with the territory as a flyhalf. They're the players that you look to get to the most physically, obviously because they control a lot of what the team's trying to do.

"So no fears at all, I think it just comes with the game."

The Springboks targeted champion All Blacks flyhalf Daniel Carter in Wellington and Dunedin but Giteau, who has recently been compared favourably with the Kiwi No.10, said he had taken plenty of notice of how Carter had handled himself.

"I think he controlled the ball very well, he played field position, he's a smart kicker and also his goalkicking," Giteau said.

"Every time they were ill disciplined he made them pay for it."

South Africa may have lost hooker Bismarck du Plessis to suspension this week for making contact with an All Black forward's eyes, but they also underlined their status as the world No.1 side with last weekend's thrilling 30-28 victory.

On Saturday they will present the Robbie Deans era Wallabies with a genuine litmus test of exactly where their new direction has taken them.

Australia have won only three of their past eight games against South Africa and just one from four in Perth.

The home side go into the game as underdogs with the bookmakers, but captain Stirling Mortlock said the Wallabies were happy to have that tag.

"From our perspective, the team's perspective, we've got objectives and goals that we're focused on but certainly that underdog tag, that sits fine with us, that's great," he said.

"We're still going out with a huge positive focus to play positive football and hopefully be successful."

The Wallabies were forced to complete their final training run on Friday in wild weather as a severe storm lashed Perth, and more rain is predicted for Saturday.

Mortlock said those conditions would help the South Africans.

"I've got no doubt that they're going to try and take us on up front," he said.

"Also with the weather conditions ... I think it's going to play into their hands."

The skipper nominated Boks fullback Conrad Jantjes, who has replaced veteran Percy Montgomery, as a danger man.

"He's very enterprising, solid under the high ball, solid kicking game so they'll probably have a lot more impetus from there as well," Mortlock said.

Australia's players will need their thinking caps on as they revert back to rugby's experimental laws for the Tri-Nations after three Tests playing under the game's traditional rules.

"We played the whole Super 14 under very similar ELVs, there's only a couple of changes to that and I don't think they'll have too much of an impact," Mortlock said.

"If anything they'll play into our hands a bit."

The importance of an Australian win on Saturday is underlined by their next two assignments against the Springboks - in Durban where they haven't won since 2000 and Johannesburg, where their last victory was in 1963.

Teams

Australia: Adam Ashley-Cooper, Peter Hynes, Stirling Mortlock (capt), Berrick Barnes, Lote Tuqiri, Matt Giteau, Luke Burgess, Wycliff Palu, George Smith, Rocky Elsom, Nathan Sharpe, James Horwill, Al Baxter, Stephen Moore, Benn Robinson. Res: Tatafu Polota-Nau, Matt Dunning, Hugh McMeniman, Phil Waugh, Sam Cordingley, Ryan Cross, Drew Mitchell.

South Africa: Conrad Jantjes, JP Pietersen, Francois Steyn, Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana, Butch James, Ricky Januarie, Pierre Spies, Juan Smith, Schalk Burger, Victor Matfield (capt), Bakkies Botha, CJ van der Linde, Schalk Brits, Gurthro Steenkamp. Res: Adriaan Strauss, Tendai Mtawarira, Brian Mujati, Andries Bekker, Ryan Kankowski, Ruan Pienaar, Peter Grant.

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