Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has sprung a selection shock for the first Test against England, with 33-year-old Brumbies lock Cadeyrn Neville to make his Test debut at Optus Stadium in Perth on Saturday night.
Neville will be the third oldest Wallaby debutant since World War II at the age of 33 years and 235 days, the second-rower rewarded for a fine season that saw him become a key cog of the Brumbies’ run to the Super Rugby Pacific semifinals.
Rennie will unveil his full squad later on Thursday, but it is expected to take on a significant Brumbies feel as the Wallabies look to replicate the ACT franchise’s near-unstoppable rolling maul.
While they fell one point short of the Super Rugby Final and a date with the Crusaders, it was the maul that brought the Brumbies back into their semifinal against the Blues, resulting in two tries before they were denied what looked to be a clear penalty inside the dying stages.
With Brumbies coach Dan McKellar now moving to the Wallabies staff in a permanent capacity, it’s highly likely that Australia will seek to replicate the dynamic set-piece the Brumbies had created in Canberra.
“In and around set-piece, we’re trying to develop a mindset here of having the best maul in the world,” McKellar told reporters on Wednesday. “That takes time, there’s five groups of players that come from different franchises and they all do it differently, so the buy-in and the thirst for it from the playing group has certainly been obvious from my end.
Just that genuine physicality and brutality around what we do, playing with a real hard edge, you’re not going to win any game of rugby without it, and you certainly won’t win a Test match.
England boast a strong set-piece with the likes of Ellis Genge, Jamie George, Courtney Lawes, Mako Vunipola, Tom Curry, Maro Itoje and Billy Vunipola all having long proven themselves at Test level.
Asked how a successful mauling template used by the Brumbies could be replicated by Australia, McKellar acknowledged would have to improve it further again, and that that would be the difference between perhaps settling for three points from penalties or backing themselves to punish England by kicking to the corner.
“It’s just about mauling better, I was talking about it with a few players today, but the reality is in Test-match rugby games are often tight, so when the opportunity comes to take points you generally take the points,” he said. “Whereas in Super Rugby, bonus points over the course of a season, scoring tries is certainly important.
“So opportunities I find within Test rugby are less, but when we do take them, we’ve just got to be better. And as I said, there was a growth and a shift in mindset, and mauling’s one part of it, there’s a whole lot to being a good forward pack, that’s certainly not the only part of it. But it’s an area that we’ve identified where we can make some shifts.”
With Neville included, rising star and his Brumbies teammate Darcy Swain is also tipped to beat out Rebels lock Matt Philip for a spot in the second-row while ACT combination may also see Folau Fainga’a win the race to star at hooker.
Taniela Tupou has likely failed in his bid to recover from a calf injury, which may see Waratahs young gun Angus Bell included given his ball-carrying ability, a skill that more closely mirrors that of the Reds prop rather than veteran James Slipper.