19 August 2025
Golden Wallabies
Good morning G&GRs and welcome to Tuesday’s news. Based on the comments on Monday, we’re all basking in the glow of the Wallabies great victory over the Springboks at Ellis Park. At last count there were 88 comments on BLL’s match review on Sunday, and 173 comments on the Monday news.
There were lots of comments about where the win ranks in terms of Wallabies victories away from home and long time contributor Skip send a link to this article where he rated his top 5 wins back in 2015.
For mine, the two World Cup finals wins have to rate in the top 5, and maybe the semi-finals against Ireland in 1991 and South Africa in 1999, then it’s down to the test on the weekend, and the 2000 test in Wellington, or maybe the 2001 win against the All Blacks at Carisbrook in Dunedin. Maybe the weekend rates higher because the Wallabies really weren’t expected to win, maybe we hoped, but we didn’t expect it.
We look forward to next weekend’s game, and a chance to win a test series in South Africa and we’ll check in news about Wallaby injuries that will force changes to the Wallabies side. There is also news about the Wallaroos as they’re only days away from kicking off their World Cup campaign in England.
Wounded Wallabies
The Wallabies have a few injury worries ahead of the return match against South Africa in Cape Town this Saturday (Sunday morning Australian time). News out of Rugby HQ, courtesy of Nick Wasiliev, is that the Wallabies will be without three of the team this week. Dylan Pietsch is out with a broken jaw, James Slipper out with a concussion and Ben Donaldson is out with an injury picked up at training before the first test. Harry Wilson and Taniela Tupou also looked to be limping as they left the field, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Coach Joe Schmidt has called in reinforcements in the form of Rhys van Nek, Filipo Daugunu, and Hamish Stewart. It’ll be interesting to see who gets picked this week, will JAS move to the wing for Paisami to move into the midfield, will Kellaway get to start or will Toole get a go? Replacing Slipper will also be intriguing, Angus Bell could start, but then they lose the impact off the bench.
Wallaroos World Cup dreams
As you would expect in the week before the World Cup kicks off, there’s plenty of news coming out of England about the Wallaroos and their chances to go deep into the tournament. Wallaroos skipper Siokapesi Palu thinks that the team has the potential to achieve great things and has challenged the squad to match the performance of the 2010 World Cup when they beat France in the third place play off by 22-8. Your can read the full article by Lachie Grey and Nathan Williamson over on rugby.com.au, by clicking here.
Given the depth in womens rugby and the quality of opposition they’ll be facing over the coming weeks, making it to the semi-finals and beyond would be a great achievement.
Experienced Wallaroos
Palu and her team mates have shown significant improvement this year, which is welcome reward for their full time contracts and the number of games squad members have played. In another article by Lachie Grey and Nathan Williamson which you can read here, coach Jo Yapp calls out the experience of the squad compared to the 2022 version that headed across the ditch to New Zealand. The 2022 squad had only one player who had accumulated 30 caps before the World Cup, whereas the 2025 squad can call on ten players that with that level of experience, including Ashley Masters and Trilleen Pomare who have more than 40 caps. Another aspect of the more experienced Wallaroos side is that 17 of the squad are at their second World Cup after playing in the 2022 edition.
World Cup
Just a reminder that the women’s World Cup starts this Saturday with the Wallaroos facing Samoa at 9:00pm on Saturday night as they look to get off to a racing start.
From all of us here at G&GR to the Wallaroos, good luck with this week’s game and the World Cup. We hope you play well, and get a good win against Samoa,
Wrap up
That’s a wrap for this week, a shorter article due to some long days at work, as always thanks for making it this far, have a great Tuesday and we’ll see you in the comments.
Cheers.
