LONG READ Tom Wright: The Year of Living Dynamically

What a difference a year makes. This time last year, Tom Wright, like most Australian rugby fans, would have been processing the Rugby World Cup knockout stage that didn’t contain the Wallabies, with the worst Australian tournament on record already several weeks in the past.

Eddie Jones was literally in his final days as Wallabies coach. This week marks the one-year anniversary of his spectacular downfall. Hamish McLennan, Jones’ biggest supporter, had but weeks left of his reign as Rugby Australia chair, and once they had both departed, the game of rugby in Australia got on with the increasingly difficult job of recovering and revitalising itself.

Wright’s own game was at a similar crossroads. He’d made a strong fist of his first full season at full-back for the ACT Brumbies – succeeding Tom Banks, who had made a big-money move to Japan – and after spending much of his time at international level rotating between the wing and the bench, finally got his chance in the Wallabies No.15 jersey. In a RWC year, it really looked like planets were aligning for Wright.

Two weeks into the 2023 international season, it had already come crashing down.

Wright played full-back in the Wallabies’ first two Tests of the year, and after suffering their heaviest loss to South Africa since 2008 in the first match in Pretoria, they backed it up with a lacklustre showing against Argentina in Sydney, conceding a late try to lose by three.

It wouldn’t be the last time he did it in 2023, but Jones lost patience with a group of players after those losses, with utility back Reece Hodge and Wright among the biggest casualties. Michael Hooper was injured in the lead-up to the Argentina game, and little did we know at the time, that would be his career in Australia done.

Wright played the Australia A RWC warm-up game against Portugal in late August, but aside from that, his only other rugby was a couple of games for his Canberra club, Western District.

Fast forward to now, and Stan Sport viewers in Australia may have noticed the Autumn Nations Series promo slide on the rugby page. The page features four international stars: New Zealand’s Jordie Barrett, Ireland legend Peter O’Mahony, England workhorse Maro Itoje and Wright, in the middle of all of them.

I wasn’t sure about ‘Wrighty’ in terms of what was his best position. I’d heard rumours that he was a centre… I thought maybe he’s an option at 12

From RWC squad discard to a place alongside some of the most immediately recognisable Test players in the world, in a little over 12 months. It’s been a hell of turnaround in 2024.

But perhaps what’s more remarkable is that he nearly didn’t succeed Banks as the Brumbies’ full-back at all. And for avoiding that near-mistake, Wright’s coach has a God-like figure within ACT and Australian rugby to thank.

Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham told me: “I wasn’t really sure whether he was going to be our full-back or not.

“I was undecided when I came back from Ireland (coaching with Munster). I remember having a conversation with Laurie Fisher specifically about our 12s, and I guess in my head, I was thinking of someone who had the ability to ball-play.

“Laurie was of a different opinion and sort of felt that the game had moved away from that to the point where both centres were more defensively orientated and good ball-carriers. You kind of used one on the first phase and one on the second phase.

“But I wasn’t sure about ‘Wrighty’ in terms of what was his best position. I’d heard rumours that he was a centre, whether that was in league or union, I wasn’t 100% sure. I thought maybe he’s an option at 12 and sort of got convinced the other way by Laurie to bring in a really dominant ball-carrying 12. And that was sort of the plan.

“So we gave him that opportunity (at full-back) in 2023, and just saw a really good progression.”

It proved a masterstroke. The Brumbies had Len Ikitau cemented in at 13, a strong ball-carrying outside centre who is also regarded by all, bar Eddie Jones last year, as one of the best defensive 13s in the game. They paired him up with Northland and former Blues No.12 Tamati Tua to fill the ball-carrying role Fisher convinced Larkham about, and that allowed Wright to slot in at full-back.

The move would be the making of Wright, who after a proper breakout season in 2023, followed it up with an even better season in 2024. He played virtually every minute of all 16 games – but for six minutes early in the season – and proved to be one of the very best counter-attacking and broken-field runners in Super Rugby Pacific.

Wright ranked fourth for the number of carries in 2024 (Brumbies and Wallabies team-mate Rob Valetini was top), ran the most metres of any player in the competition – over 100m metres more than the Chiefs’ Etene Nanai-Seturo in second – and also ranked fourth for the number of defenders beaten.

He’s my second eyes out there, you know. I feel like this is the best I’ve seen Wrighty play

The emergence of the 27-year-old as a secondary playmaker last year added a new dynamic to the Brumbies attack, and it was better again this season. He was the leading Australian try-scorer with 10 and was in the top five for the competition overall, but he also became the crucial lynchpin in second and third-phase attack and formed a deadly combination down the left edge with speedster Corey Toole on counter-attack.

Fly-half Noah Lolesio made specific mention of Wright and their one-two playmaking dynamic when I spoke to him during the Super Rugby Pacific finals.

“He’s my second eyes out there, you know. I feel like this is the best I’ve seen Wrighty play,” Lolesio said back in June. “Just his communication, his energy, his speed. He’s been unbelievable.

“If he’s there closest to the ball, I leave him there at first receiver and he can sort that out and I’ll look after him outside and vice versa. That’s sort of been the growth of the whole backline. It’s just giving everyone different looks and opportunities to attack.”

Larkham speaks of Wright’s evolution in very similar terms.

“He’s a really good communicator on the field, but also in the meeting space, around training, the intensity, the quality of training. He drives that really heavily.

“He’s also a really good communicator in terms of understanding a system and making sure everyone’s accountable in that system. Outside of our nine and 10, he’s the second or third-highest passer in our team, and he touches the ball the third most within the team as well.”

Larkham sees similarities between the Brumbies’ midfield carriers and Lolesio and Wright leading their attack with his own emergence as a fly-half in the late-1990s, in particular the importance of great communicators and consistency all around him on the field.

“When I first came through, Rod Kafer, Pat Howard, Tim Horan were my inside centres, and I had George (Gregan) on my inside.

“So I had a confident, consistent half-back on the inside, and then I had these people who were kind of the brains behind the operation on my outside. It gave me a lot of confidence just to go out there and play without having to think about controlling everything and seeing everything.

“When you’ve got someone on the outside that is seeing that space there, and you’ve got a really good connection with them, you can’t under-estimate how important that is for a young, developing 10 to have someone like that at second receiver,” he says.

It all makes perfect sense, but then you remind yourself that in discussing Wright, the standout Australian full-back in 2024, you’re also talking about a guy who had every reason to be disheartened with the game after it churned him out and moved onto the RWC without him last season.

What we’d see at training was a guy that knew exactly what he needed to do, but just cruising through, not necessarily testing it, saving himself for the weekend. And he changed.

But instead of kicking cans, Wright flicked a switch ahead of the 2024 season. The classic ‘rocks or diamonds’ player, he managed to maintain and maybe even enhance all his attacking instincts, but the mistakes so often held against him were nowhere near as prevalent this season.

So, what changed?

“We had a good chat about more consistency at training and not so much around his skills, but more consistency about training at a higher intensity,” Larkham explains.

“That was the big issue that I thought would improve his game. If we could get him to train at a higher intensity, at a higher pace, then he’s practising his skills at that higher pace more regularly. And it’s transferring to the game.

“What we’d see at training was a lot of cruising through, a guy that knew exactly what he needed to do, but just cruising through, not necessarily testing it, saving himself for the weekend. And he changed.

“I had one conversation with him and he took that on board and changed the way that he trained, changed the way that he approached training, and the rest is him really. I didn’t have to drive him any more than that.”

The net result has been his most consistent performances in a Wallabies jersey. In 2021 and 2022 he enjoyed extended runs in the Wallabies team, but rarely extended runs in the same jersey. Right wing, back to the bench, left wing. Sometimes in the same series. Occasional games at full-back. Never really getting a run in one jersey, and thus, never getting a chance to build any consistency in his game.

His versatility meant he was often the one to switch position at the Brumbies in his early years, too.

He also happens to possess genuine top-end speed, a trait that makes defenders look silly and highlights editors giddy with excitement.

By contrast, across 30 Super Rugby Pacific games and 10 Test Matches in 2023 and 2024 – even before Jones lost patience with him last season – Wright has played every one of those games in the 15 jersey.

The thing about being consistent, it turns out, is you have to do it all the time.

“Any opportunity in a position for a long period of time makes you a better player in that position,” Larkham says. “He was aware of the mistakes that he’d made previously. But now he can back it up week in, week out in the same position, knowing that ‘that was a mistake last week but I’m not going to do that again this week’.

“The way that he plays, he’s been challenging the way 15s have played in Australia over the last two years, where he is finding space on that counter-attack, and he is looking for the offload sometimes through contact. He’s making really good decisions, but it’s not like he’s playing a conservative game, trying to avoid mistakes.

“Wrighty’s found a happy medium there, I think, at the moment. There’s certainly fewer mistakes. He’s just more consistent in certain areas of his game and still challenging in other areas of his game.”

That has made Wright one of the most exciting players in the game currently. The rocks in his game are much fewer, and the diamonds in his game stand out so much brighter as a result.

The fundamentals of his game are well suited to full-back; he kicks well, passes well, finds space exceptionally well, and makes good decisions in order to find and exploit that space. He also happens to possess genuine top-end speed, a trait that makes defenders look silly and highlights editors giddy with excitement.

Those moments when Wrighty’s about to get the ball in his hands in a bit of space, it’s just good to sit back and watch.

On counter-attack, the Brumbies have a mantra to just never kill the ball, and Wright epitomises that mantra like few other players can. He’s difficult to pin down at the best of times, but when he’s playing with confidence, he’s incredibly hard to contain. And in those moments, even his coach wants to watch it all unfold.

“It’s kind of exciting to go, great, here’s another opportunity for Wrighty to do something,” Larkham smiles. “It’s like you kind of sit back and you want to enjoy the game as well.

“When he is receiving that second pass, there’s generally space somewhere. So ‘what’s going to happen now? Is he going through or is he going to put someone else through?’

“Those moments when there is a bit of space and you know that the boys have seen it on the field, and when Wrighty’s about to get the ball in his hands in a bit of space, it’s just good to sit back and watch. They’re the moments where it’s just all him, this is his natural talent now coming through.

“Yes, it’s years of training and becoming better because of the training program, but this is now him just playing what’s in front of him, and that’s what he is good at, where it’s now just me versus you.  That’s the exciting bit to me.”