Things could get worse before they get better for the Waratahs with tough trips to Perth and Auckland over the next two Saturdays to face the Western Force and Blues.
Mathematically, the Waratahs are still a chance of making the playoffs, but in reality they are battling to avoid losing the last six games of their Super Rugby campaign.
On paper, the trip to Perth presents the best chance of doing this, although for senior Waratahs such as Andrew Kellaway, it also presents a chance to show some Wallabies form in the face of opposition in the west.
Kellaway has some capital in the bank after a good end-of-season tour during which he wore the Wallabies No.14 jersey in all four grand slam Tests, but he was already under serious pressure from the Force’s Harry Potter even before it was confirmed this week that Dylan Pietsch would be making his comeback for the Force on the left wing and that the Reds’ Filipo Daugunu had re-signed with Rugby Australia.
Potter is statistically the best Australian winger in Super Rugby Pacific due to his statistics across a number of key categories supplied by Opta.
He’s second in the entire competition for defenders beaten, with 45, behind the Highlanders’ Timoci Tavatavanawai. Kellaway has beaten 18 defenders, with only one less game played.
Andrew Kellaway has a chance to prove himself.Credit: Getty Images
Potter has also topped 1000 run metres and is just 20 metres behind the Brumbies’ Corey Toole. Both are in the top 10 on that leaderboard, although Tom Wright leads the way with 1441 metres.
Potter is also the leading Australian offloads merchant with 13, tied third overall in Super Rugby Pacific.
In fact, based on statistics alone the Force’s Mac Grealy would be a shoo-in ahead of Kellaway, who has produced only four offloads, eight clean breaks and 507 run metres, while tackling at a worrying 59 per cent from 61 attempts (Potter is 75 per cent from 101 attempts, Grealy is 71 per cent from 52 attempts and the oft-maligned Toole is 65 per cent from 103 attempts).
This is definitely not the contribution the Waratahs would have hoped for from Kellaway.
Western Force winger Harry Potter.Credit: Getty Images
The class, as opposed to the temporary nature of form, will surely see Kellaway included in Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies squad, but the bigger question raised over the past week or two is who is going to be in the chosen 23 to 25 that Schmidt will withhold from the British and Irish Lions tour games to prepare for the first Test in Brisbane on July 19.
Kellaway’s spot in that group is not guaranteed, not just because of a statistically underwhelming Super Rugby Pacific campaign.
Instead, it is Potter’s maturity that would give Schmidt a degree of comfort about making a change to this thinking. Potter isn’t some starry-eyed youngster having his first breakout campaign.
He’s a 27-year-old seasoned campaigner, and Schmidt would have noticed that even when the Force’s season was starting to turn to mush in places such as Tauranga against the Chiefs, Potter’s performance levels barely deviated.
He’s an intelligent player with the ability to produce a bit of x-factor, and unless Kellaway can start building some moments of his own, the threat to his Wallabies jersey should be seen as genuine.
There are a number of other variables about the selections in the outside backs, primarily where Schmidt sees the game-starved Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii fitting in, and whether Max Jorgensen can successfully complete his latest injury rehabilitation.
Pietsch will also be keen to make a late charge in the Force’s last game of their campaign, particularly as he was in excellent form before his untimely injury.
But, in all likelihood, the race for the Wallabies No.14 jersey for that first Test of the year against Fiji will come down to Kellaway v Potter. That duel is arguably the biggest contest within the game in Perth on Saturday.
Langi Gleeson will also need to shoot the lights out after confirmation of Pete Samu’s move to the Waratahs from Top 14 side Bordeaux-Begles next season. One of Samu’s attractions from a Wallabies perspective is his ability to slot in anywhere in the back row, making him an obvious bench option for the Lions series.
And while the cliche is to worry about players being flogged in French rugby, their huge squads mean the load can be spread. In fact, Top 14 statistics show that four Bordeaux back-rowers have played more minutes than Samu, who has only started nine games in this season’s Top 14.
