Deans to choose from the best for Fiji test March 17, 2010
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans should be delighted with the fact that situation leading up to the opening Test against Fiji on June 6 has become a lot more fluid due to the impressive form of Australian Super 14 teams so far.
The re-emergence of the Queensland Reds should certainly see of their determined players in the squad.
The Brumbies have thrown winger Pat McCabe, tighthead Salesi Ma'afu and centre Christian Lealiifano into the mix in recent weeks, while 20-year-old Waratah Kane Douglas has picked the right moment to start making an impact with his 201cm, 116kg frame, with Australia's stocks in the second row thin to threadbare.
But it is the Reds who are catapulting most of the new names into the mix, with tighthead Laurie Weeks, loosehead Ben Daly, veteran second-rower Van Humphries, blindside flanker Scott Higginbotham and inside centre Anthony Faingaa all making barnstorming starts to the Super rugby season.
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the Reds' 50-10 victory over the Force on the weekend was that every member of the starting team was part of the playing roster last season, when Queensland finished second last.
Reds coach Ewen McKenzie, who readily acknowledges the good base his predecessor Phil Mooney built at Ballymore, was typically underwhelmed yesterday by the fact that his team of (largely) no-names was muddying the selection waters in the year leading into the World Cup.
"I'd be disappointed if we weren't offering up players to the national program," McKenzie told The Australian.
"Some guys (Will Genia, Quade Cooper, Digby Ioane and Peter Hynes) are reinforcing their Wallaby claims but other guys are putting their hands up as well. Our job is to make Robbie Deans' selection process very hard."
Faingaa, whose twin brother Saia probably would come into the Wallabies reckoning as well if Australia was not already well served at hooker by Stephen Moore and Tatafu Polota-Nau, is precisely the sort of consistent player Deans has targeted in the past, McKenzie said.
"It's quite clear if you listen to what Robbie Deans says that he has a strong focus on players who turn up each week, have a physical presence, are honest and who has all the ball skills."
Certainly, it hasn't harmed Faingaa that he is playing outside arguably the best halves combination in the Super 14, Genia and Cooper, but he also is establishing himself as the "jackal' of the Reds side, responsible for more defensive turnovers, according to Reds defence coach Matt Taylor, than any other player in the team.
"It's like having another openside flanker," Taylor said.
Perhaps the pity is that he is not an opensider because Australia has gone from having an embarrassment of riches two months ago to a desperate shortage of quality at number seven following George Smith's retirement from Test football and the severe hand injury to the Force's David Pocock.
Matt Hodgson, who continues to turn in one sterling performance after another for the Force, is shaping as the man most likely to fill the void if Pocock's return is at all delayed, unless the selectors want to resurrect veteran Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh.
But resurrections could be in the wind, with NSW coach Chris Hickey insisting the Australian selectors need to revisit their eviction of Al Baxter from the Test squad last year.
"Definitely," Hickey said. "I'd rate him the form tighthead in the Super 14. He has just scrummed against the three best looseheads in South Africa and for mine, he has put himself at the front of the queue (of Australian tightheads)." Fijilive
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