The Wallabies are sweating on a concerning arm injury to star recruit Joseph-Aukuso from Monday’s (AEDT) 27-13 loss to Scotland in Edinburgh.
Suaalii immediately clutched his right arm after making a tackle on Scotland’s Australian captain Sione Tuipulotu in the 30th minute at Murrayfield.
The former NRL star left the field in pain as he was replaced by Max Jorgensen and there were initial concerns that he may have broken his wrist.
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But Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt was more optimistic post-match.
“He’s got a pretty numb arm, but we’re hopeful it’s not too bad,” Schmidt said.
Wallabies legend Tim Horan said it was a “shocking” injury on Stan Sport.
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“It was a good shot too on the 12. Tuipulotu came across inside and then you just saw him hold. As soon as he made the hit, his right wrist, he held it up,” Horan said.
“You thought it might have been a stinger early on with his right shoulder. And then straight away he went off and Tuipulotu had a bit of a laugh to him.
“But that’s huge. If he’s got a broken arm or broken wrist, that’s eight to ten weeks at least. That’s probably his season over.”
Tuipulotu also spoke about the incident post-match.
“To be honest, I didn’t really know it was him that hit me because it felt humongous,” he said.
“When I popped up, I was just kind of looking around at who it was and then I saw that he was on the ground, so I said something to him and then he went off the pitch.”
The Wallabies have just one more game to play this season against Ireland on Sunday (AEDT).
The Scotland loss ended their Grand Slam dream after previous wins over England and Wales.
“It was intense. I felt we were in the contest, particularly in the first half and we probably should’ve converted a few more points with the pressure we had,” Schmidt said.
“The breakdown was pretty messy and I think that’s just the way Scotland like it. It makes it very difficult to construct your play and we also found it difficult trying to get past guys around the breakdown and that’s something we’ve got to solve.”I thought we just fell off too many tackles. I think if you miss over 30 tackles in an international then you’re just not going to win them.
There’s plenty to learn. We made some good linebreaks and got nothing off the back of them, kicked one away, knocked one on, and you’ve got to be better than that in a tight game.
“I think our skill execution was a bit off today. Defensively we worked really hard in the first half and I thought we defended really well, but in the second half there’s a fair bit to tidy up.”
The Wallabies were unable to train as usual due to freezing conditions in Edinburgh while hooker Matt Faessler (injury) and lock Jeremy Williams (illness) were late withdrawals from the starting side.
“You want players to be able to roll with the punches when that happens,” Schmidt told Stan Sport.
“You’re never going to get smooth sailing. You’re going to get [a] late injury or late illness. We got it in Argentina and fell off a cliff. We got it today and weren’t good enough. And so we’ve got to learn from that. That’s certainly something we’ll learn from this experience, that when things aren’t in rhythm and they’re not what we’d like them to be, you’ve still got to get on and deliver the goods.”