Monday’s Rugby News has no more Israel Folau for the year, no more Stephen Moore ever, Kieran Read and Steve Hansen saying stuff, and the squad for the Baabaas.
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No Folau
Israel Folau is off after the Barbarians game next weekend, with the fullback to take a bit of a rest and go raise (heterosexual) rhinos and elephants in Africa like David Pocock did.
Folau has a Japan guest contract clause in his ARU contract, meaning he can bugger off to Japan for a summer. Folau has taken up this option, with Michael Cheika saying that for now Folau is going to rest up to be super fresh for next year. Folau has also pretty much played every game for the past 3 or 4 years, playing in Wellington for the Waratahs despite being sick as a dog.
“With Israel, I’ve decided to play him because I’ve decided that he won’t be going on the tour at the end of the year,” Cheika told rugby.com.au.
“He had in his contract the ability to take a Japan leg – if he wanted to – at the end of this season. We discussed it and we thought it might be better for him to have a break and come back fresh next year.
“He’s played a lot of footy and he’s been doing so well. I would prefer him to have that break than to have gone there and I think that’s a good balance for all of us.
“It’s part of building our depth as well. It will get other players to take responsibility without him there.
“It will be good for him and a good opportunity for players in that position to fill some of that space.”
Added to Folau’s physical exhuastion, is also a desire for the fullback to get out of the media spotlight, that may or may not have partially resulted from Folau’s mandatory need to voice political opinions that would necessarily attract a lot of media attention.
“He’s been under the microscope every single day since he has come to rugby – every single day,” Cheika continued.
“This will be a chance for him to get out of that for a moment and rest his body, rest his mind, take a well earned breather and then get back into it from day one of Super Rugby next year.”
With Folau away, who will Cheika play at 15? Karmichael Hunt? Kurtley Beale? Quade Cooper? Dean Mumm?
“I’d have a look at that option,” Cheika said, referring to Hunt and, unfortunately, not Mumm.
“We play that sort of hybrid version sometimes where he can attack from the back and defend from the front.
“He brings a big presence there and he’s an experienced player, he’s got X factor and he will be a player I can consider for that role. Especially when we have Beale and Hodge and Samu (Kerevi) who can play in that 12 spot.
“There’s a fair few options at fullback so we will see how it pans out when we get to the tour and it will be a good chance for Izzy to take a well earned (break).”
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Final Squeak
The Lifting of the Darkness™ was the last time Stephen Moore played for Wallabies, and the one they call Squeak reckons it’s one of the best games he’s ever played in.
“The effort was terrific … that’s one of the better performances I’ve been a part of,” Moore said, according to the SMH. “For this group particularly, it’s a really important result. We’ve been working towards it, we’ve been talking a lot about the improvements and at some point you have to get an outcome. For this group, [Saturday] was that.
Moore started in Dunedin, but the hooker was hooked for more gloriously-haired TPN. It was the reverse in Brisvegas, with Moore trotting on 60 minutes in. But apart from that, Moore reckons it was exactly like Dunedin.
“It was exactly like the Dunedin game,” Moore said. “They had that kick-off there probably around the same time and I thought Lukhan [Tui] just stepped up and caught it with real authority.
“That’s probably a bit of a shift from the Dunedin scenario. Guys were a bit unclear about what was going on and he knew his job there. We spoke about it and he went in and did it. That’s a growth area to start with and I thought our defence right through the game was pretty good. These kind of wins are always built on defence.
“We just talked about believing, just staying in the moment.”
It’d be nice to know if Moore was going on the European tour, acting as a mentor, but it’s unclear at the moment. Talking about being a mentor and that, Moore is quite pleased that part of his legacy will be a wider leadership group than when he started out as cap’n.
“[I want to] just play any role that’s required of me, continue to work with the young players and grow the leadership group,” Moore continued. “Something that has been pleasing for me is the growth of the leaders in the team. I don’t think we’ve had that in this team for a number of years.
“There’s five, six, seven players now that are a part of that leadership group and having real input and driving the standards, driving the outcomes. It’s really powerful when that happens and I’ve really seen that grow in the last period of time.
“Maybe 12 months ago it was myself and Hoops who were probably doing a lot of the stuff.”
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Read All About It
Kieran Read is one of those rare New Zealanders who can take a loss well. He chatted to the Courier Mail about why his team didn’t win on Saturday. Bad discipline he reckons.
“It came down to the opportunities that they took,” Read said.
“It was a physical game, it was a game that we let them into with our ill-discipline. And they won the territory. They took that moment and from that they scored two or three tries, so really, that was the difference.
“They took theirs and we didn’t take ours. That shows the sign of a pretty good team and they’re doing that at the moment.”
Does it really, Kieran? Does it really? Anyway, Steve Hansen then had his chance at having a say.
“They took their opportunities. We gave them another intercept try and so that was a seven point start this time,’’ Hansen added, gracefully.
“They didn’t blow any of the opportunities they had. They worked hard and put us under pressure as well, which prevented us taking ours.
“Australia played well. They’ll be happy with themselves. Hopefully they kick on and have a great northern tour.”
Hansen, who was handed a machine so well-oiled it was drenched in the stuff, but the average Wales coach reckons he can turn it around.
“That’s what the review is about and we will go back, review our game and look at the things we need to work on and we will fix them,’’ he said.
“That’s what we have done over the history of our time as a team and we will do it again. The sun will come up tomorrow.
“The wheels on the bus keep going around, in two weeks’ time we have to play another game and we’ll take those learnings and we’ll use the hurt that’s here to grow.”
Asked particularly what failed his team, Hansen answered:
“If your team doesn’t click between your forwards and your backs — which we didn’t, I think we really struggled — apart from the first lineout where we struck pretty well, we really did struggle.
“Some of that is the ball we are presenting, some of that is the decisions that we are making and some of that is the pressure from Australia.
“There is no point pointing fingers at anybody — we will have a good look at it on the tape and find out exactly what was wrong. We will get on and fix that up.”
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The BaaBaas 13
Michael Cheika will rest up to 13 Wallabies for the Barbarians game, coming up this Saturday.
As mentioned above, Israel Folau won’t be on those missing. He’ll play this game, and then will put his legs up for the rest of the year. The only other Wallaby who will start in Brisbane and in Sydney will be Jack Dempsey. Yep, everyone else will be rested.
Cheika has a 28-man camp to choose a squad from, and of these 28 there are Wallabies from Brisbane, the usual fringe players, a few uncapped, and Liam Wright, a flanker from the Reds who has a promising season with the Australian u20s.
Folau Faingaa, Duncan Paia’aua, Izzy Perese, Jake Gordon, Jermaine Ainsley and Billy Meakes will join Wright as the uncappeds, with Paia’aua and Meakes maybe-definitely going to get their first Wallabies caps.
Fox Sports also reports that Kane Douglas, James Slipper and Ben McCalman (finally recovered from a freak shoulder injury) will get starts in the Barbarians game, which won’t have Test status.
One player who won’t be playing for the Wallabies will be Quade Cooper, who is captaining Alan Jones’ Barbarians™.
Squad:
Forwards Jermaine Ainsley*, Allan Alaalatoa, Rory Arnold, Jack Dempsey, Kane Douglas, Folau Fainga’a*, Tetera Faulkner, Ned Hanigan, Ben McCalman, Stephen Moore, Tom Robertson, James Slipper, Lopeti Timani, Lukhan Tui, Jordan Uelese, Liam Wright* Backs Israel Folau, Kyle Godwin, Jake Gordon*, Karmichael Hunt, Samu Kerevi, Billy Meakes*, Duncan Paia’aua*, Izaia Perese*, Nick Phipps, Joe Powell, Curtis Rona, Henry Speight
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