Ruthless and risky, maybe even slightly deranged. The Wallabies 2023 World Cup squad, announced on Thursday night for the “smash and grab” mission on rugby’s greatest prize starting next month in France, shows all the diverse moods of its maverick head coach Eddie Jones.
Foremost is the ruthlessness. Six weeks after being named co-captain of Jones’s team, 125-Test talisman and spiritual leader Michael Hooper, 31, has been denied a farewell tour in France after failing to recover from a calf niggle. Similarly, flawed genius fly-half Quade Cooper, 35, has been cast back into the wilderness after two dud starts and a fumble from the bench that let the All Blacks kick to victory in last week’s Bledisloe Cup match. And after poor Tests in July, fullback Tom Wright and flanker Jed Holloway have been dumped.
