James Slipper surprised by Wallabies’ captaincy call before Wales Test

Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt seemed to catch himself out on Thursday after initially suggesting that new captain James Slipper wasn’t “massively keen” on the role, but the new skipper agrees that that’s “probably fair” to say.

Last week’s captain Liam Wright has been ruled out of Saturday’s clash with Wales due to a shoulder injury which has led to an exciting tweak to the backrow and a change in the leadership department.

ACT Brumbies enforcer Charlie Cale comes into Australia’s starting side for the first time at No. 8 while Rob Valetini shifts to blindside flanker. The coaching staff have also appointed James Slipper as the man to lead the Wallabies.

There is probably no better player to lead the Wallabies in Wright’s absence with the 35-year-old bringing a wealth of Test and leadership experience to the table. ‘Slips’ is in the 130s for international appearances and has captained the team on 14 occasions already.

“It’s always special. I didn’t see it coming to be honest,” Slipper told reporters on Friday. “It was pretty unfortunate for ‘Wrongaz’ [Wright] to miss out this week. He’s picked up a bit of an injury last week and it’s unfortunate for him being one Test into his captaincy.

“I’ll just take the reins for the week.

“It’s whatever the team needs from me, sort of thing.

“For me, I’m always happy to do it but I was really happy to see Liam get the chance to lead out last week and going forward.”

Slipper, 35, will pack down in a familiar front row with Matt Faessler and Taniela Tupou, while Jeremy Williams and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto round out an unchanged tight five that helped the Aussies claim a 25-16 win last weekend.

The backline also remains unchanged, with flyhalf Noah Lolesio tasked with steering the Wallabies’ attack around the park as the chief playmaker. Hunter Paisami, Andrew Kellaway and Tom Wright are among those ready to do a job in the run-on backs.

This is a team who have a sense of confidence about them heading into Test No. 2 under coach Schmidt, but they’ll be looking to do something that no Wallabies team has done since 2022 and that’s winning back-to-back Tests.

As Slipper explained on a pretty nice morning down by the Yarra in Melbourne, “it’s important” the Wallabies back up their heroics from last Saturday with another positive result.

“We want to be winning games and the good teams are consistent throughout their performances and that’s what we’re aiming to do.

“We want to back up last week with another good performance and hopefully we get the result on the back of that.

“We’ve been preparing well all week and that’s our plan.

“Confidence is probably the most accurate word to use,” he added. “We’re coming off a pretty lean year last year.

“New group of players, new staff – we just really want to put in a performic that we’re proud of but that would get us results, so we got that. The challenge for us now is to replicate that.”