Horwill makes a welcome return

Sydney: Australian lock James Horwill returns to the Test arena for the first time in more than a year and a half this weekend hoping to help the Wallabies erase the memory of last weekend's surprise defeat to Samoa.

Having missed all of the last international season through injury, the Queensland Reds skipper was rested for last Sunday's humiliation to allow him to recover from the physical and emotional exertions of winning the Super Rugby title.

Horwill has been recalled with a cohort of his provincial teammates for the Tri-Nations opener against the Springboks on Saturday and does not think the Wallabies are that far from a winning combination. "It's been about 20 months since my last Test and I'm really excited to get back in the gold jersey," he said at the Wallabies training base yesterday.

"With the [Reds] guys coming back, we're looking forward to getting out there and hopefully having a positive impact.

"Obviously the Samoa loss wasn't a great performance, that was pretty clear. So we've got things we need to work on. There's not big changes we need to make, just little things we need to do better to get the result we want.

"We've got to start this weekend and hopefully everyone will forget about last week."

Horwill will form an all-Queensland second row with Rob Simmons at Sydney Olympic stadium when the Wallabies will need to up their game after losing the breakdown by the Samoans.