TOKYO (Reuters) -At the start of the year few Australian sports fans would have had heard of Nick Champion de Crespigny, but on Saturday the 29-year-old will lead his nation against Japan as the 92nd Wallabies captain.
The burly loose forward, who returned to Australia from France at the start of the season, was an unexpected inclusion in Joe Schmidt's squad for the British & Irish Lions series and a shock debutant starter in the first test in Brisbane.
Another cap off the bench against South Africa gave him a grand total of 72 minutes of test experience and he might be accused of understatement by describing his naming as captain for the Japan clash as "somewhat surprising".
"I'm super honoured and proud to be able to represent Australia and to have this sort of opportunity as well," he told reporters at Tokyo's National Stadium on Friday.
"As a little boy you always look up to the Wallabies, and I was fortunate enough to grow up watching John Eales, George Gregan, Michael Hooper captain this country.
"You know you look up to those guys from since you were little so it's something I don't take lightly."
Schmidt made 13 changes to his starting side for Saturday's match as he tries to keep his players fresh for an end-of-season tour that continues with visits to England, Italy, Ireland and France.
Champion de Crespigny is clearly respected by his teammates and had already been brought into the Wallabies leadership group before his elevation to skipper.
Openside Fraser McReight described him as a "psycho" before his debut, while lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto said on Thursday anyone thinking of describing Saturday's team as "second string" would need to be quick on their toes to escape the flanker.
"We've got a great squad here with a lot of depth," Champion de Crespigny said.
"You look at the team of names, you've got Angus Bell, who's coming up on 50 caps, like Lukhan, who's one of the best locks in the world.
"You've got Rob Valetini, Carlo Tizzano, who's just been named Super Rugby Player of the Year. As a team, we're really confident in the sort of performance we can put out there.
"We want to put a performance out there that we can be proud of and the Australian public can be proud of. We're very internally driven and just want to keep growing the Wallabies' game every week."
(Reporting by Irene Wang, writing by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
