'We protect our backyard strongly' - Nielsen

Australia's coach Tim Nielsen has continued to needle South Africa ahead of the first Test, which starts at the WACA on Wednesday. Nielsen raised the ire of his South Africa counterpart Mickey Arthur earlier this month when he said the visitors had been talking themselves up and Nielsen has admitted his comments were intended to unsettle the visitors.

"It's about us making sure that when people come to Australia, they can't just walk into here and expect to have it all their own way," Nielsen said after Australia arrived in Perth. "We haven't lost here for a long period of time. That's because we've played good, hard, aggressive cricket and we really do fight hard to maintain our standing in our own country.

"We enjoy playing in front of our own crowds, we love putting on a good show and entertaining the people, especially at this time of the year when people are on holidays. What better thing to do than to come to the cricket and watch Australia win?"

Australia have not lost a Test series at home since they were beaten by Richie Richardson's West Indies in 1992-93 and South Africa have won only one Test in Australia since their readmission. Nielsen said Australia, the No. 1-ranked team, would remain tough for South Africa to beat despite losing some of their aura over the past couple of seasons.

"I've been quite interested in how much they've been commenting on what we've been saying," Nielsen said. "We've just been answering questions. We protect our own backyard very strongly ... you'd expect us to do well here. That's the challenge ahead of South Africa at the moment, to come into our backyard and play well enough to beat us."

Australia are yet to announce a starting line-up with the only query being whether the offspinner Jason Krejza would win selection ahead of the allrounder Shane Watson. Despite playing only one limited-overs match for Tasmania since rolling his ankle nearly three weeks ago, Krejza is the more likely choice as Australia seek a balanced attack.

"Last year we found out the wicket dried out pretty quickly over the week leading up to the Test and it's forecast to be pretty warm weather over the next few days," Nielsen said. "All those things add up to [Krejza] being a real possibility. At this stage, we've just arrived and we'll get our head around the whole thing when we see it tomorrow morning.

"[Krejza's preparation] is probably not ideal. It would have been brilliant for him to bowl in Adelaide, had a really good Test match and bowled for Australia in Australian conditions. He bowled the other night in Adelaide in the Ford Ranger Cup game and got some overs in, which is nice.

"He's been training hard, he's felt no side-effects from the injury to his ankle. At the moment he's probably not much worse off than he would have been if he was 12th man in the last Test, for example. We feel pretty comfortable with where he's at."

Watson played all four Tests on the recent tour of India when Symonds was not available for selection and retained his spot alongside Symonds for the first Test against New Zealand at the Gabba. Nielsen said Watson's best chance of returning to the Test team was as an extra seamer if conditions suited, rather than as a replacement for Symonds at No. 6.