Quade Cooper’s shock withdrawal from the Wallabies spring tour has forced Australia’s selectors into a major backflip as Noah Lolesio prepares to board a plane to the United Kingdom after all.
The Brumbies five-eighth was a surprise omission from Dave Rennie’s spring tour squad with the coach saying he wanted the youngster to get stronger and improve his defensive game over the off-season.
But instead Lolesio is now likely to feature in the Test against Scotland in Edinburgh on November 8, given another playmaking option, Reece Hodge, is out injured.
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Rennie told reporters from England this evening that veteran utility back Kurtley Beale would also join the squad, which has already been hit by the withdrawals of Samu Kerevi and Sean McMahon.
Rennie said Cooper – a feelgood story who had led the Wallabies to five straight wins – was “torn” by the decision to instead stay in Japan for a preseason with Kintetsu Liners.
“He’s a good man,” Rennie said.
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“He’s contributed massively on and off the field. He’s torn.
“He wants to be here, he wants to be a Wallaby but he feels loyalty towards his club so in the end he’s made a decision that he feels is the right one, that’s best for him.
“So we’ve accepted that and moved on… that’s his primary employer isn’t it?
“Ideally we want guys who are desperate to be Wallabies and I know Quade says he is.
“But he’s torn and I think if he had the support of the club, the blessing of the club, he’d come. But he hasn’t.”
The messy situation has come about after Rugby Australia loosened criteria around picking players from overseas clubs this season.
Under World Rugby’s regulation nine, clubs in theory have to release players when selected for international teams in official Test windows but in practice the situation is far more complex.
Rennie pointed out that Kintetsu and Suntory Sungoliath had likely signed Cooper, Kerevi and McMahon thinking that their international days were over, given RA’s then policy.
“From a reg nine perspective… the European, UK clubs are used to dealing with that,” said Rennie, who previously coached at Glasgow Warriors.
“They sign those players knowing they could be taken away from a reg nine perspective and perhaps the Japanese clubs have taken these guys on not expecting them to be away. I’m not sure where things will head beyond this year.
“This was a bit of a trial based on COVID, based on a few other plans that we had to utilise more players from overseas.
“I guess we’ll have a look at the end of the tour and then make a plan around what that looks like beyond this year.”
Rennie said Beale was being viewed primarily as an option at fullback, a position that needs to be filled following Hodge’s serious pectoral injury.
But Andrew Kellaway and Jordan Petaia are the more likely options at 15 against Scotland as Beale integrates back into the squad.
“We get a chance to look at Kurtley in our group and get an understanding of how he would fit in from a cultural perspective and a rugby perspective,” Rennie said.
There are likely to be further reinforcements to the Wallabies squad, with Toulon playmaker Duncan Paia’aua a possibility but Reds No.8 Harry Wilson not.
Rennie said he was “really disappointed” by the three withdrawals but claimed they would not be a distraction to what he described as a tight knit squad.
“Our focus is now on who’s here… I’ve been around a long time and there’s a lot of curveballs in this game. It just happens, you get injuries, you move on.
“We’re disappointed because certainly Samu and Quade have been with us for quite a while and contributed really well and it would have been nice to have them here.
“But they’re not and we’ve got a good squad here, a really tight group so we’ll prepare well for Scotland and this won’t be a distraction, we’ll just move on… probably what it highlights is discussing that stuff with a club early on would have been important.
“Twelve months ago, they weren’t thinking that these guys they’ve got in their team, former internationals, would be unavailable due to Test footy.”
