Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Halves options the biggest conundrum for Wallabies

Tate McDermott and James O'Connor. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

A blast from the past has given Wallabies scrum-half Tate McDermott reason to pause and reflect ahead of next month’s three-Test series against England.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Wallabies entered camp on the Sunshine Coast on Thursday, arriving at the resort where McDermott slaved away as a food and beverage attendant as a teenager.

Now, the 23-year-old is a chance to start in the Wallabies’ first test of the year in Perth on July 2.

Video Spacer

Will Skelton joins the Offload.

The big rig Will Skelton joins us from Monaco this week where he’s on tour with the Barbarians and rooming with George Kruis. He fills us in on the tour so far, hanging out at the palace with the Prince and who’s leading the charge off the pitch. We also hear about his man-of-the-match performance for La Rochelle in the Champions Cup Final, that famous open-top bus celebration and what it’s like playing for coaches like O’Gara and Cheika.

Video Spacer

Will Skelton joins the Offload.

The big rig Will Skelton joins us from Monaco this week where he’s on tour with the Barbarians and rooming with George Kruis. He fills us in on the tour so far, hanging out at the palace with the Prince and who’s leading the charge off the pitch. We also hear about his man-of-the-match performance for La Rochelle in the Champions Cup Final, that famous open-top bus celebration and what it’s like playing for coaches like O’Gara and Cheika.

“It’s been a pretty good journey so far,” he said. “Not only am I lucky to be here but just to have the players around me that I can learn off, guys like Nic White, Quade Cooper, Jake Gordon all those kinds of guys in this environment. What a brilliant chance for me to get better as a player and also as a person.”

McDermott said he’d already run into some familiar faces around the resort.

“The GM that was here when I was here is still here, a couple of my mates from school are working here as dish pigs,” he said.

“It’s awesome to be back.”

Cooper, Noah Lolesio and James O’Connor will begin mounting their cases to play fly-half when the Wallabies have their first field session on Saturday and McDermott said he looked forward to watching them compete.

“I’m really excited to see how that battle pans out,” McDermott said.

“They’re all very different players and I’ve always enjoyed playing with each and every one of them. I’m pretty excited to see where that heads.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Each candidate brings a different CV to the table. Ending a four-year absence from the national side, Cooper was the chief architect of the Wallabies’ five-match winning streak last year playing at fly-half.

Cooper missed the Wallabies’ Spring Tour to play club rugby in Japan but has been lured back to Australia as one of coach Dave Rennie’s three international selections.

For his part, 22-year-old Lolesio guided the Brumbies to within an inch of this year’s Super Rugby Pacific final, while O’Connor is raring to play in a home test series having missed last year’s with a groin injury.

Rennie could make the puzzle a little easier to solve by shifting O’Connor to fullback, but McDermott said things might not be that simple with Tom Banks and Andrew Kellaway already jostling for that spot.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Of course he’s an option, but you’ve got to remember there’s some pretty good fullbacks here as well,” McDermott said.

“I’ll leave that to ‘Rens’ and ‘Wisey’ (assistant coach Scott Wisemantel). It will be a bit of a headache for them and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens there.”

McDermott said the competition wouldn’t end there; he himself will have a fight on his hands to usurp Nic White as scrum-half and fend off Waratahs captain Jake Gordon.

“That extra fierceness and competitiveness, not just the halfbacks but every position, will come out,” he said.

– Jasper Bruce

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 40 minutes ago
Let's be real about these All Blacks

The opening loss to Argentina by 38-30..

Was anything but fine margins, the scoreline was flattering for that game. They were beat in every margin but most emphatically be effort of Argentina. They were slow and likely arrogant in their prep following the England series. You can see the effect on the selection and poor messaging all the playmakers started receiving from the coaching setup there after.


Otherwise though there was also a lot of really good stuff that can too easily be labelled as lucky by people intent on making a point. The team was far from certain and clinical though and the best that can be said of their losses was that they were largely due to some atrocious decisions with cards twice against SA and the neckroll last weekend (you can't take away the 14 point try, that is typical French rugby and to be expected).


This team is good enough to be able to cope with those sorts of difficulties if they could just execute a bit better (but only as well as they have traditionally mind you). Sound selections aside. Some good positivity in this article but we know it's not going to be easy as the ABs have just been trying to return to their DNA after Fosters control but countries like Aussie have a much bigger task in that respect and SA is even trying to change their DNA (again). Those two opponents (along with France obviously) are going to provide some tough competition in seeing who can lead into the 2027 RWC with the best prospects and form behind them.

41 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall' 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall'
Search