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Eddie Jones shares his thoughts on 'the hierarchy of Wallabies 10s'
By Liam Heagney
New Wallabies boss Eddie Jones has given his assessment of the battle for the No10 Australia shirt in a World Cup year where his first match in charge will be the July 8 Rugby Championship game versus South Africa in Pretoria. The identity of the player who will get to be the first-choice out-half is one of the many intriguing elements to the Wallabies heading into 2023 following the unceremonious sacking of Davie Rennie as the head coach.
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On the recent five-game Autumn Nations Series tour, Rennie selected Bernard Foley on three occasions as his starting No10 with Noah Lolesio and Ben Donaldson each given one start, but Jones isn’t limiting his selection to just those three players given what he said at his introductory media briefing on Tuesday.
Asked if the Wallabies can have an inexperienced 10 or do he think experienced 10s win World Cups, Jones answered: “Some 10s can be inexperienced at 30, mate, and some 10s can be experienced at 23.
“So it just depends on their ability to put all the bits and pieces together, to put the information they get from the outside, look at the speed of the ball, their communication with their nine.
“At the end of the last England tour, I watched (Tane) Edmed and (Ben) Donaldson play against each other, Eastwood versus Randwick down at Coogee Oval and both have got a lot to like about them. Donaldson played well on the last tour, so he is a young guy coming through and he looks like he has got a good head on him. So who knows, mate? There is great competition there.
“We’re hopefully getting Quade (Cooper) coming back, Foley is playing well in Japan, (James) O’Connor will be fit for the Reds and then you have got Lolesio at the Brumbies, a young guy who has had some experience at Test rugby.
“So it is going to be competitive, but we are definitely going to have to decide a hierarchy of 10s because that is the cohesive part. You want cohesion, particularly in the spine of your team so we will try to get to that as quickly as we can.”
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