As the international teams gear up for the traditional November Tests, their coaches are locking in the World Cup plans. Less than a year out from the first whistle in Paris, the world’s best teams are set to put their best XVs on the paddock.
All teams, except for the Wallabies. The top ranked teams of Ireland and France know who their best key position players are and will use the November Tests to solidify the combinations. Even England under Eddie Jones, ravaged by injury since the last World Cup, have firm views of who are their best players.
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Australia, on the other hand, appear a world away from settling on their preferred combinations – and the clock is ticking, with just nine Tests, including four more to round out 2022, to be played before they start their World Cup campaign against Georgia at Stade de France.
Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has given the No.9 jersey to three players in as many Tests. It’s the same at fullback.
One former Wallaby warned this week that Rennie’s selections was becoming eerily similar to Michael Cheika’s final years in charge, which backfired at the 2019 World Cup after years of inconsistency.
Another well placed source said a high ranking Wallabies official previously described Rennie as the “great socialist” when it came to selection. As in “everyone gets a go.”
As former Wallabies coach John Connolly recently said, “To be a great coach you’ve got to be a great selector”.
Eddie Jones said just this week that selection is “the biggest part of your job”.
The jury is out on whether Rennie is a great selector.
Before Tom Wright played fullback for consecutive weeks in Argentina, the No.15 jersey, in large part because of injuries, had been worn by a different player in five straight Tests.
Since then, Andrew Kellaway and Reece Hodge wore the jersey on two occasions each while Tom Banks returned to the role in Scotland before a slight ankle injury saw Jock Campbell take up the mantle for this week’s Test against France.
While Banks’ injury, which isn’t considered significant, contributed to Rennie immediately turning to Campbell, Rennie revealed on Thursday that it was always his intention to give him a crack early in the tour. All the while Rennie added that they see Kellaway as a winger. Yet if that was the case, why not give Campbell a go during the Rugby Championship?
He was the only specialist fullback fit and available. A handful of Tests earlier Rennie viewed Jordan Petaia as the next cab of the rank at fullback, before the talented Reds outside back was concussed and missed the next Test.
Two Tests later the fullback experiment was over, with Wright, a player who has had limited experience in the role, given his chance after an exhilarating, albeit living on the edge, cameo against England in Brisbane.
All the while David Campese, a man whose opinion is often scoffed at by high ranking officials, has been calling for Campbell to start at fullback since the start of the international season.
Campese, who adds that Campbell has the “vision” needed to play at fullback, has been banging on the drum about the need to build “combinations” before the World Cup.
Campbell, meanwhile, described last week’s performance against Scotland as “clunky”.
It was, and the decision by Rennie to continue to “rotate” before firming up his preferred side against Ireland in Dublin – the penultimate Test on the tour – is filled with danger.
It not only denies the chance for combinations to be embedded from week to week but what does it do for momentum?
Player development has also been a huge issue under Rennie.
Who under his watch has come through?
Andrew Kellaway is one, but his selection also came when Scott Johnson was Rugby Australia’s director of rugby.
Quade Cooper? Well, his selection came after Rennie initially put out a feeler out to Bernard Foley.
Len Ikitau was an astute decision but the Brumbies midfielder has struggled more in 2022 without settled combinations.
James O’Connor was re-signed with Rugby Australia in 2021 and a year later was unceremoniously dumped.
Wallabies hold on against Scots | 01:44
Suliasi Vunivalu received a contract extension in June yet missed selection for the Spring Tour and his player development has been nothing short of perplexing and poor.
Others like Petaia and Taniela Tupou have in some cases gone backwards while Noah Lolesio’s mind must be as clouded as the Sydney skyline of the past year. After a five-minute cameo against Scotland, the recently re-signed playmaker once again finds himself out of the squad to face France.
Burgeoning talent Mark Nawaqanitawase was initially left out of the Australia A tour before a last-minute call-up, and the Waratahs winger caught the eye of everyone immediately.
He promises to be a World Cup bolter and offers the Wallabies a genuine point of difference but has had the training wheels put on him.
Even if Nawaqanitawase is given a crack next week against Italy, what will it mean?
In an interview with The Telegraph, Jones, who threw away the playbook of introducing young players slowly by handing debuts to Henry Arundell (19) and Jack van Poortvliet (21) despite not being first-choice regulars at club level, said he often discounts starring performances from players against the bottom four teams in the English Premiership because of the quality of opposition.
So what if Australia’s fringe players star against an Italian side who earlier this year snapped a seven-year Six Nations drought? The waters are getting muddier by the day.
The Wallabies have only won consecutive matches once during Rennie’s tenure, with ill-discipline and injuries hallmarks of his three years in charge, which has his win record after 30 Tests at an unflattering 40 per cent.
Rennie says he is conscious of player burnout on the Wallabies’ spring tour, which sees his side play five Tests in as many weeks.
Yet his star backrower Rob Valetini has played every Test this year and almost every minute.
Others like Tate McDermott have been rotated out of the squad.
Rennie also makes a valid point that if players are injured during next year’s campaign he needs suitable replacements.
They could indeed, but given the inability to string matches together perhaps consistency of selection would help.
