Carter Gordon might be top of the tabloids, but Wallabies head coach Joe Schmidt is taking an ‘open-minded’ approach to his entire squad for the upcoming Japan and Europe Tour.
The side assembled in Sydney yesterday to commence their preparations for next week’s tour opener against Japan, with Schmidt conscious of a major challenge: fatigue.
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The Wallabies battled injuries during last year’s Grand Slam Tour and have already faced the British & Irish Lions, Fiji, and their Rugby Championship rivals across a gruelling 2025.
“We're staying open-minded about a number of positions,” Schmidt said to reporters on Friday.
“We do feel like this is the window where we can take a bit of a longer vision versus a short term focus, as much as we need to get those ranking points and be as competitive as we can be.
“If we don't invest now, we're not going to profit in two years … Sometimes you don't maybe get the scoreboard result, but we certainly got really competitive games across all six TRC games.
“We're right in every game coming to the last quarter, and last year we got big scores against us in three of the games.”
With Les Kiss set to take over after the Nations Championship next July, Schmidt will need to balance consistency and continuity with managing the side’s fatigue, and it will come with some new combinations.
It will be helpful that he’ll be able to call in overseas options into the squad after the England clash at Twickenham to help manage the side.
“For that England game, we didn't use any overseas-based players last year and toughed it out,” Schmidt explained.
“All five [Tests] will offer real challenges.
“I don't see anyone playing five tests in five weeks. Not after having played three Lions tests, six TRC [games].
“We're going to have to mix and match a little bit, and that's going to be part of a challenge for the squad, that we're trying to use these two days to shuffle a few guys around and build some maybe alternative combinations to what we've got used to.”
“I think we've kept building. Nothing's linear, and there are lapses, but if we can keep building, I do think we will have ourselves in a pretty good position by the end of the tour. The one thing that does worry me is a bit of fatigue at the end of the tour.
“I saw it a little bit last year. As much as the players were still very keen to represent the Wallabies, that's an inevitable kind of human, physical failing, I suppose.”
Schmidt expects the side to hit the ground running, with the extra days in camp this week proving invaluable as they prepare to spend the next six weeks together on the road.
“The thing I notice is when they came in yesterday evening, the amount of genuine enjoyment they get in each other's company,” Schmidt added.
“They are a very tight-knit group and I think that's even demonstrated on the field, they look after each other on the field and off the field they enjoy their time together.
“I think they are rejuvenated, but they're reinvigorated as well by being back together and enjoying each other's company. We've got 40-odd days where we're going to be working really hard to try to make sure that we get some profit from those connections they have.”
