All Blacks captain Kieran Read says his team will look to honour the life of Sir Brian Lochore with a win over the Wallabies in their Bledisloe Cup match in Perth on Saturday night.
The test at Optus Stadium is New Zealand's first since Sir Brian passed away last week, aged 78, after a battle with bowel cancer.
- Michael Cheika dismisses Steve Hansen's 'Mickey Mouse' jibe
- Rugby World Cup 2019: The Cup 19 Podcast - Episode Four
Each player will have Sir Brian's All Black number '637' embedded on their jerseys as a mark of respect to Lochore, who captained New Zealand 15 times during his career between 1964 and 1971.
"It's special - he was not just a special All Black, but he is a special New Zealander," Read said at Friday's captain's run.
"He meant to a lot of people and for us a team it is a way to pay respects to him and his and the contribution he made to New Zealand.
"Once you got to know the All Blacks, you looked up to him. For me, it will be very special."
The All Blacks have held the Bledisloe Cup since 2003, but Read said every clash with the Wallabies presented a new battle. He said the Australians would be fired up to end the drought.
"I think they've had the fire in the belly for the last few years, definitely, and we know they'll certainly have that again tomorrow night. We can't just rest on what we've done over those years - it's important we reset and make sure we go and play as well as we can."
Steve Hansen made it clear prior to the Rugby Championship that retaining the Bledisloe was high on the priority list for 2019, and the All Blacks have no plans to give it up easy.
A loss for the All Blacks could also seem them drop to second in the World Rugby rankings, but Read insists the team isn't bothered by that.
"It's not even part of our equation to be honest. We turn up here to win the game, and we will try and do that again tomorrow. We know it won't be easy. It never is over here."
New Zealand, who have 91.54 ranking points, have been sitting comfortably at the top of the rankings for the past decade, and a loss will see them lose them 1.66 points and subsequently drop them below Wales to second.
But Wales, who won a Six Nations Grand Slam earlier in the year, will face England on Monday (NZ time) and have to win or draw with their bitter rivals to topple the All Blacks.
Newshub.
Join us at 9:45pm Saturday for live updates of the All Blacks v Wallabies Bledisloe test
