The blows keep coming for beleaguered Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt, with star lock Will Skelton ruled out of the two Tests he was due to play in the November international window.
The Wallabies began preparations for the fourth Test of their spring tour in Dublin on Monday, revealing that Skelton would not join the squad after he suffered an ankle injury in La Rochelle’s rescheduled Top 14 clash with Toulon.
In a cruel twist of double irony, that fixture was the one that prevented Skelton from joining the Wallabies for Bledisloe I in Auckland, but it was later cancelled due to monsoon-like conditions at kick-off.
The Top 14 game was then switched to the opening weekend of the November Test window, with Skelton playing 60 minutes before the lock departed the action with an ankle injury.
Skelton’s unavailability comes at a time when the Wallabies have dropped five of their last six Tests, including the weekend’s lacklustre showing when they were upset 26-19 by Italy.
The veteran second-rower would have added valuable size and physicality to a Wallabies pack that has struggled to win the gain line in both of their Tests in Europe so far.
There is some good news for Schmidt and his squad, though, with James O’Connor having officially joined the team in Dublin. Whether the Kiwi opts to include the playmaker in his matchday 23 remains to be seen, and it may well depend on the fitness of Carter Gordon, who made his return to rugby in the seven-point loss to Italy.
Gordon came off in the 55th minute of the Test in Udine, having appeared to have suffered a recurrence of the quad injury that had kept him out of the earlier tour games.
Gordon, however, downplayed the seriousness of his injury on Monday, suggesting he would be right to go again this weekend.
“Yeah, I mean [the quad is] good. I came off with a little bit of a quad tightness but it’s been feeling better each day so we’ll rip into training this week and it should be all good,” he said.
But Gordon did acknowledge the fact that he was on limited duties in Udine, which had included offloading the goal-kicking and restart duties to fullback Andrew Kellaway.
“I think we’re just being on the safe side,” Gordon said. “Early in the week we just made a decision that we were going to obviously offload some of that kicking, but ideally I get back into pretty much doing all of it.
“Obviously we’ve got to keep tabs on it, making sure I’m not doing too much but yeah, ideally I get back to doing all the kicking.”
Prop Angus Bell, who was also under an injury cloud following Sunday morning’s [AEDT] defeat, meanwhile rejected suggestions the Wallabies were running on empty after a busy 2025 schedule.
Australia are 13 Tests into a 15-game programme, which included the much-anticipated British and Irish Lions series and a two-match tour of South Africa, where the Wallabies ended a 63-year drought at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
“One hundred percent, no we definitely have enough petrol in the tank,” Bell told reporters in Dublin.
“Again as I said before when you play for the Wallabies, when you play for your country it’s a massive honour. Whether you’ve done it once or 100 times every week is exciting, every week is an opportunity. I sit here as a 25-year-old and you never know how many more Tests you’re going to play, you never know what’s around the corner.
“And look, mate, every time you pull on that jersey it’s an absolute privilege. So, look for me there’s no bigger motivator than playing for your country… we’re ready for the next two weeks and we’re going to try really hard to get to resurrect I guess what happened on the weekend.”
