Wallabies coach Eddie Jones is edging closer to picking star midfield combination Samu Kerevi and Quade Cooper after both were named in Australia’s travelling squad to South Africa for next weekend’s Rugby Championship opener against the Springboks.
The pair formed a lethal partnership in 2021 when the Wallabies went on a five-Test winning win that included four Rugby Championship victories.
However, both suffered serious, long-term injuries last year, with fly half Cooper rupturing his achilles tendon during a Test in Argentina and inside centre Kerevi tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee while playing for Australia’s rugby sevens team at the Commonwealth Games.
Kerevi made a return to competitive rugby just under seven weeks ago for Japanese club side Tokyo Sungoliath before straining a hamstring soon after playing for the Eddie Jones-coached Barbarians.
Veteran playmaker Cooper was part of the same Barbarians outfit and was last week named in a 34-man Wallabies squad.
While not included in the 34, Kerevi, 29, was chosen in six-man rehabilitation group and showed enough progress during this week’s training camp on the Gold Coast to book a seat on the plane to South Africa.
Four members of the rehabilitation group – Langi Gleeson, Andrew Kellaway, Jordan Petaia and Matt Philip – didn’t travel to South Africa on Friday with the rest of the squad.
Prop Angus Bell (toe) is the other player in the group to make the trip but is considered next to no chance of being fit for the Test in Pretoria on Sunday week (AEST) despite Jones saying “everybody on the plane” is “at this stage available for selection”.
“We’re pretty sure who is (in the 23-man match-day squad) but we’ve got to see how the players travel, see how they come through the first couple of days of training, and then we’ll name them,” Jones said from Sydney airport before the team’s departure.
“We’ve left those (other) four at home, so they’ll get ready for (Tests against) Argentina or New Zealand, depending on their progress.
“We don’t need to get ahead of ourselves. Sometimes a sprint doesn’t win the marathon.”
The “marathon” journey will conclude at the September 8-October 28 Rugby World Cup in France.
“We want to put a new standard of Wallaby rugby forward, we want to set the tone (in Pretoria) for our campaign,” Jones said.
“We want to play a certain style of rugby, but there’s the opposition, the referee, and ultimately we need this style of game to be at its best for the World Cup, so we’ll go through stages in the Rugby Championship where we’ll build on it.
“We’re more concerned about ourselves than South Africa.”
