u/ConscriptReports

We currently have the most amount of squad depth Ive seen from a Wallabies side in ages. It's good that almost every individual in the squad is a genuine competitive option for selection each test week.

We are also basically injury free for the most pivotal positions in the team right now and hopefully if Carter remains fit it will stay like that.

Our setpiece is the best its been in years with an amazing lineout and solid, dependable scrum. Our backs are all genuine ballers on attack and only slightly iffy on defence at times (massive improvement over past years). The foundations left in place by 2 1/2 years of Joes regime are great and will keep paying dividends as the team starts expanding out their style.

We have a fresh faced coaching staff filled with both grizzled international veterans and new, ambitious individuals stepping up with presumably some new ideas to change things up abit. Led by a Aussie, who is an emotionally intelligent people's person type of a coach that places heaps of importance on the jersey and Wallabies pride.

I mean whats not to like right now about this team? How good is it to be a Wallabies supporter now!

We have reached the part of pure hopium of the cycle of Aus rugby, now to see what happens to push us to doomerism once more.

So I think it's more than fair to say that Les managed to clear the initial low hurdle of the 2 Japanese Tests that Rugby Australia put in front of him relatively well.

The first test was with a 3-point margin, in which, whilst the Wallabies weren't at their best, they managed to stay mentally in the fight through adversity, such as dealing well with the 20-minute red card, to clinch a win against a very game Japanese side in Osaka.

The 2nd, where they blew out a slightly weakened Japan side by 39 points, was also a great showing for the team and their growth as a unit, pulling away after problem-solving Japan in real time during the 2nd half.

That Les did this while experimenting with players' roles and positioning to an almost funny degree, to the point that it felt more like we had Rassie as a head coach than anything else in the ending moments of the two games, is also encouraging.

It feels kinda fun and exciting to move from Joe's brand of, then, much-needed rugby conservatism to a really out-there coaching group that's all in on risking the dice if the payout could be worth it. I believe it was Iain Payten on Inside Line who said that last weekend's 3-point game was maybe a 'the teachers left the classroom, we can do all the things they never let us do today with the substitute,' and it resulted in the team playing a bit too loose, and it resulted in us wasting many opportunities. This weekend, they seemed to really tidy that up and tighten up the game where it was needed, and it resulted in the funny scoring of all forward tries. So good job, Les and coaching staff; you've cleared the first obstacle put in front of you and got your team onto a 3-game winning streak.

So now looking to the next step up on the ladder: Argentina - 7th on the rankings.

This is where the true state of our team and growth will reveal itself. Winning these games against an opposition that is ranked higher, and away from home, than us (Aus - 8th ranked) is vital. We pushed Ireland close and got blown out by France in the 2nd half at home. All three of our current wins come from opposition, good as they may be, ranked beneath us. The last time we beat a team ranked higher than us was against, I think, the Springboks in 2025. If Les Kiss can get this Wallabies team to beat a somewhat unpredictable Argentina, it will be the next step on the ladder before testing ourselves at Home against the Boks and gearing up for the Bled once more.

Argentina are in a very strange place - they are on a 3 game skid streak after a very poor showing by a good, experienced side that lost to the English in a grindfest of a game and managed to push a really good and experienced Boks side, filled with World Cup winners, to a very narrow loss using an extremely young side in a chaotic game similar to the England test. Before those two games, they beat ~~both~~ only Wales and lost to a 2nd-string Scotland side at home during the July tests in one easy and another standard test match. I think, internally, pressure will be really high on them to perform well against us tbh.

Last year we had two very tight games against them here in Aus, one resulting in a famous Townsville win and the other a narrow defeat in Sydney as we chased the game hard in the second half with peak Tate energy after a lacklustre Gordon performance, only to fall short near the end. A big highlight of those games was how easily they scored against us through backline attack off midfield set pieces. They, more than any other team, managed to make our backline, JAS in particular, be out of position and give up easy meters and punished us hard by forcing the players to make decisions on who to bite in on constantly in defence.

They were very good in attack, and I think this coming game will be the perfect benchmark to see how the new defence holds up against some of the best attack in the world. I wasn't very convinced of the new structures in the past two games and could see the players really struggling at times with what to do. Our backline defence in particular hasn't been the best, and that was very true in this recent game gone by against Japan, where all their tries basically came from exploiting the wider 12, 13 and Winger channels to reach the 22 pretty easily and work their way from there to the try line. I think our backline defence will be pressured even more in Argentina, and I'm kinda scared for it.

I think JAS should be moved to the bench 23, if fit and available for selection, because I don't think he's defensively better than either Flook or Henry, and Daugunu hasn't really impressed me much in gold this year. JAS also theoretically covers 10 through 15 relatively well and is a great utility bench option for the backline. I don't want to see Argentina get easy line breaks because of them forcing JAS into making a wrong decision in defence; they will 100% target that channel and him if he's on for the majority of the game, and I think the other two options in the team would handle that better. JAS is better suited to the ABs or Boks games, where the physical aspect will matter more than the cardio and pace game will (I also do think JAS is kinda slow and lazy a bit - he could do with a Gregan or a Gittaeu in his ears, whispering mean things to push him harder).

I think Len should start if he's fit and ready, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if Hunter plays instead; he is actually defensively really solid and has more line-busting ability than Len, imo. (Lens is a much better distributor, enabler of those around him and in-close carrier to the line than Hunter, but Hunter's open-space ability and one-on-one prowess are greater than Lens).

Our forward pack is really well settled and class right now; I don't think any forward in that Wallabies squad (except maybe Kailea, just because he hasn't got game time yet) would do a bad job if called upon. Just our backline config that needs a bit more tweaking to truly get it ready for the Argies. If Carter's out with an ankle injury, I think JOC is needed as a call-up to steady the ship with an experienced hand, like what he did in 2025 (Foley is also an option but is drastically more needed in Tahs pre-season Super Aus training as a senior figure and co-ordinator than anything he could realistically offer in that Wallabies camp environment). I also really want to see how JOC would do under an HC like Les, which won't exile him for playing what's in front of him rather than the pre-decided game plan. I could also see Tate getting starting minutes over Ryan one game - maybe the second, depending on the first game's outcome.

I think the pass mark for the Argies tour is atleast 1 win, and if a loss does happen, it must be an extremely close and heartbreaking one. Anything less than that does not bode well for our development moving forward.

RA have planned out a very well-designed step ladder of opponents in increasing difficulty to have us sufficiently battle-hardened against the real top dogs of the Boks and the ABs. If we can make the most of this opportunity and slot up wins against all the SH teams we will be playing, even if we don't win them all, we'll be in a really nice position heading into 2027.

But fuck man, I really want us to win the Bled or atleast be the team that takes Eden from them - it's a record that's built upon our backs more than any other team in world rugby, and fuck if we don't deserve to have it broken more than other teams.

Les has seemingly gotten the team to buy into his vision and fixed whatever second-half slump problem infected them during the last bit of Joe's tenure with the squad. Even to hear that his halftime message was simply that the team needed to respect possession more and think more often about whether kicking it away was the right play before choosing their next move was a balm for my soul. The Players are also coming into form at just the right moment, and I haven't been this hopeful in a long time (basically 2025 pre-Tate bled 1 injury).

The entire July test series felt like such a frustrating watch often because, in every game until Italy, we did so many good things across the park but just couldn't string them together into one cohesive, whole 80-minute performance. Our set-piece was dominant, our attack clean, our foundations all-round excellent, etc. That's why I called the Italy game a blowout for us: we had so much good in each game that the odds were on us finally clicking together more than on us totally failing.

That's also why I called this weekend another blowout in our favour; the fact that we only beat Japan by 3 last weekend is actually really bad, considering how many good opportunities we had to put them away and subsequently squandered in really stupid ways. And yet those were truly easy fixes that, once they cleaned them up, we managed to put an 8-try performance together over relatively the same opposition.

The bones of a really strong and consistent top 4 team are present in this squad, built by Joe and his boring but smart coaching group and style; now it's up to Les to truly bring them out onto the Test stage and enable them to play to their strengths, but to do it in an intelligent manner. Go the Wallabies!

Edits: Fixed the incorrect reporting of the Scotland game for Argentina, where they actually lost to a somewhat 2nd string Scottish team

We have a 3 game winning streak people! John Howard Index soon to be off the charts!

Nice write up by John Ferguson

Was a good little feature in my opinion

Koroibete was offered a modest wider squad contract with the Queensland Reds and held discussions with the Fijian Drua, but ultimately settled on continuing his career in the west of Wales on a one-year deal worth more than $200,000.

Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii finished the 35-32 win against Japan on the wing - and that was a preview of where he will end up under new coach Les Kiss.

A number of push and pull factors are at play - including the value that Hunter Paisami offers in the way Kiss likes to attack - but ultimately Suaalii’s strengths and weaknesses are better suited to the outside backs.

The 23-year-old is a sight to behold with ball in hand - and showed it in Osaka - but his distribution isn’t good enough for an elite Test midfielder, and his defensive issues persist.

Interestingly, the Wallabies picked an out-and-out midfielder on the bench for the first time this year, so Kiss might have always had a plan to have a look at Suaalii on the edge.

Paisami was a massive part of how the Reds played under Kiss, and his strong game against Japan means that a Paisami-Len Ikitau combination is likely once Ikitau returns from injury.

Amatosero red card was a fair call

There was a scramble to find mitigating factors after Miles Amatosero put a shoulder to the head of Japan captain Warner Dearns in the first half, but it always looked like red-card material.

All Blacks flanker Luke Jacobson was lucky to avoid a red card in similar circumstances for a clean-out against Ireland last month, but Amatosero can’t have real complaints.

While late changes of direction and dips in height might be relevant to tackle situations, when the tackler is caught out by a ball carrier’s dynamic movement, Amatosero has lined up Dearns from metres away and has his eyes locked on him until turning his shoulder to hit him with force.

His selection was always a risky one. Perhaps the Wallabies expected Harry Hockings to start and wanted to counter his size, but as it turned out Jack Cornelsen was selected for the Brave Blossoms, and he used his greater mobility to produce a strong performance.

It’s easy to understand Amatosero’s appeals to coaches, given his size, but at the moment there is a big gap between what coaches want him to be and where he actually is with his rugby.

Declan Meredith struggles at No.10

The Brumbies five-eighth showed great mental courage to turn around an uncertain first half and put the Wallabies in some great attacking positions with a few great touch finders.

Brumbies fans will remember all too well how Meredith completely lost his way against the Hurricanes during Super Round in Christchurch. But the cold, hard reality is that Meredith won’t get away with repeats of his performance in Osaka against the Rugby Championship sides or the Six Nations teams in November.

Carter Gordon ran the water in Japan and is presumably close to a return, but Ben Donaldson must be wondering what he needs to do to earn a crack at the jersey.

On the flipside, there was a big positive in Tom Wright’s return to top speed and form, Harry Potter was excellent, and Josh Canham outpointed Dearns in a high-quality duel in the second row. He would have relished nicking one lineout off the giant Dearns in the first half.

As far as the Kiss imprint goes, it is too early to say. However, some of the Wallabies’ ball movement and ambition was the best they have produced since the opening segment of the loss to the All Blacks in Perth last October.

Interestingly, Kiss told the Stan coverage after the Test the Wallabies had “overplayed” at times in Osaka. However, the key to unlocking this particular group of Wallabies is not to pull the reins too tightly.