Eddie Jones takes the first squad of a new Wallabies era into camp on the Gold Coast this week. The 33 players he has selected are being rewarded while those left out are being challenged to nurse the hurt and channel it into onfield improvement. The 33 players selected “have delivered on work-rate, effort and intent,” said Jones.
This camp will be no picnic. Jones is a hard taskmaster and sent a warning to every national team wannabe. “Competitive doesn’t cut it,” he said. “We will build a winner’s mindset – and we will win games. That will come from confidence and belief [and] through effort and sacrifice.”
This is not a World Cup squad but a first step toward both the 2023 and 2027 tournaments. “We have the talent in Australia but not the team,” Jones is fond of saying. To find that team, Jones has thrown down the gauntlet to a host of young talent.
Carter Gordon
With the Wallabies fly-half spot firmly up for grabs, the flaxen-haired cult hero has staked his claim for the No 10 jersey with a scintillating start to the Super Rugby season for Melbourne Rebels with his fast hands, big kicks, hard-charges and crazy-brave energy.
“I love his competitiveness,” said Jones of the 21-year-old Sunshine Coast kid whose younger brother Mason is also a Rebel. “He’s always in the fight and never beaten. He’s got that feel [for] when to flatten up and when to be a little bit deeper, which is a bit of a lost art.”
Jones desperately needs a spark-plug playmaker. Quade Cooper, James O’Connor and Bernard Foley are old and injury-prone and 17-Test experiment Noah Lolesio wasn’t invited to camp. It leaves livewire Gordon, 21, to fight it out with two-Test Waratah Ben Donaldson.
Blake Schoupp
The Wollongong hooker was a full-time PE teacher and part-time rugby player last year. But after two dynamic starts and four starring bench appearances for the Brumbies in 2023, the 23-year-old has been named in Jones’s 33-man squad.
“I feel like he’s got a lot of growth in him,” Jones said of Schoupp, whose brother Aaron plays in the NRL with Gold Coast Titans. “He’s built pretty close to the ground; if he’s standing behind a picket fence you’re not going to see much of him… he’s built like a brick shithouse, isn’t he?”
The 180cm, 110kg frontrower might now be the hardman Jones is hunting for the World Cup. “He scrummages hard, he’s hard on the ball, and he’s one of those guys, he’s come up the hard way and I feel like with an opportunity we might get a bit more out of him,” Jones says.
Dan Palmer
As Australia’s first openly gay Wallabies player, Palmer is already a trailblazer. But the one-cap Wallaby is fast building a case as Jones’s most forwards-thinking lieutenant.
After retiring in 2014, Palmer, a former debt collector, underwent an epic transformation. He came out, dropped 20kg from his 112kg frame and completed a double degree in science and psychology at Australian National University, becoming a tutor in cellular neuroscience.
But it’s as a “scrum doctor” that Palmer, now 34, might be doing his most important work. Working as Brumbies scrum coach since 2020 and buoyed by a month working with Jones at Suntory last year, Palmer has been a key cog in the ACT side’s 6-1 start to 2023.
Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham and captain Allan Ala’alatoa say Palmer is the best scrum coach in the world so promoted him to forwards coach for 2023. Will Jones follow suit?
Josh Flook
With three doubles from five games of the 2023 season, the powerful Reds centre has strength and speed in spades and was one of the bolters on Jones’s 33-man list.
Calm under pressure, unselfish with the ball and brilliant in defence, Flook has a “feel for the game” Jones is looking for. “One of the things I learnt from [former Randwick and Wallabies coach] Bob Dwyer was always try to pick guys with things you can’t coach,” Jones says.
Jones reckons Flook has “that ability to read the game, instinctiveness… a good head on him, good character and [he’s] hardworking.” He will pressure Hunter Paisami and Jordan Petaia for the No 13 jersey.
Max Jorgensen and Tom Lynagh
Their fathers played in the Wallaby gold three decades ago and now Jorgensen, 18, and Lynagh, 20, are suddenly in the frame to fill their famous dad’s boots in Test rugby.
Jorgensen, a flyer like father Peter, scored twice on debut for the Waratahs in February with fast footwork and evasive speed. “The big thing about Test rugby is having pace, particularly in the back three,” Jones has said. “He’s got great instincts about him [and] he’s got courage.”
Lynagh is Italy-born, UK-raised but a calm and calculating fly-half like 72-Test great Michael. Like Jorgensen, he’s more likely to start in the 2027 World Cup but the door is ajar for 2023, even though he just missed out on selection for this squad. “I don’t think it’s about age,” says Jones. “It’s about whether they’re good enough.”
