New-look Wallabies to face Pumas

By Melissa Woods
July 23, 2015, 7:21 am



Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has overhauled his team, making seven changes to the starting line-up to face Argentina with Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper among the casualties.

Despite last week's last-gasp win over South Africa to open Australia's Rugby Championship campaign, Cheika has put the broom through the side as he continues to search for his best World Cup line-up.

David Pocock has won this round's battle for the openside flanker role, relegating fellow former captain Hooper to the bench.

Cheika resisted the temptation to start two fetchers - Pocock and Hooper - together in his backrow and recalled Ben McCalman at No.8 in place of Scott Higginbotham, who drops out of the match squad.

In the other change to the starting pack, renowned scrummager Greg Holmes replaces prop Sekope Kepu, who drops to the bench.

The backline has also been reshuffled, with a new halves combination in Nick Phipps and Bernard Foley.

Phipps takes over from the injured Will Genia while five-eighth Foley has relegated Cooper to the bench.

Joe Tomane is the injured Rob Horne's wing replacement while Matt Toomua will start at inside centre in place of Matt Giteau who is also out injured.

New faces on the bench include lock Dean Mumm, halfback Nic White and utility back Kurtley Beale, who returns from injury to bump Drew Mitchell out of the squad.

Australia lost to Argentina in Mendoza last year 21-17.

Wallabies: Israel Folau, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Tevita Kuridrani, Matt Toomua, Joe Tomane, Bernard Foley, Nick Phipps, Ben McCalman, David Pocock, Scott Fardy, Rob Simmons, Will Skelton, Greg Holmes, Stephen Moore, James Slipper. Res: Tatafu Polota-Nau, Scott Sio, Sekope Kepu, Dean Mumm, Michael Hooper, Nic White, Quade Cooper, Kurtley Beale.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...to-face-pumas/

OK, I'm a bit clueless as to why Kepu was dropped unless it was his work around the park. Our scrum was pretty much a disaster until Sio replaced Slipper.

I do like the sensibility returning to the backrow selections though. We need to have a pack that will win the ball FIRST and then one which can ake yards with it. I think this is a far better selection I'm not even too depressed about having Skelton there, since he's the only real liability in the breakdown game. He's a liability because of the combination of not being quick, neither is he smart enough to read play a couple of phases ahead and be in the right place. When we're defending, he's a bit of a ballchaser.

He'll still make some big hits when he happens to be in the right place and he does seem to have a pretty good run/offload game when the momentum is in the right direction. Fardy and Benny Mac provide the options in the lineout against a team that is, to be fair, much better at the set piece than we are at the moment.

I hope to see Toomua slipping into first receiver a fair bit and also doing a lot of the tactical kicking, since he's a far smarter footballer than Quade. I would also like to see Beale get splinters in his arse for 80minutes, because in comparison to giteau's "kid Dynamite" Beale is "Kid Dynamite which has sat in a box for thirty years and gotten sweaty" It might do the job you want, but it might also blow you and your family up for no good reason at all.

Here endeth the sermon

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Originally Posted by GIGS20

OK, I'm a bit clueless as to why Kepu was dropped unless it was his work around the park.

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I think he just wants to have a look at different combinations and give everyone a run leading into the world cup.

I like how the article called hooper a fetcher, i thought it was cute.

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Originally Posted by palitu

I like how the article called hooper a fetcher, i thought it was cute.

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if we look hard enough into the linguistics i bet it translates to seagull somewhere along the line

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Originally Posted by palitu

I like how the article called hooper a fetcher, i thought it was cute.

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:iconrofl:

Simmons is luggage. His ineffectiveness at the breakdown and cleanout was put under the microscope on Rugby HQ. He is also shite at carrying the ball over the advantage line and offloading. He is toilet

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Originally Posted by WARHORSE

Simmons is luggage. His ineffectiveness at the breakdown and cleanout was put under the microscope on Rugby HQ. He is also shite at carrying the ball over the advantage line and offloading. He is toilet

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And as soon as a new, young lock comes through at the Reds, I expect the Force to make Simmons an offer. We are the franchise that offers players a last hope in Australia (Dunning, Ma'afu, etc)

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Originally Posted by Sheikh

And as soon as a new, young lock comes through at the Reds, I expect the Force to make Simmons an offer. We are the franchise that offers players a last hope in Australia (Dunning, Ma'afu, etc)

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Rubbish!

The Rebels will snap him up before we get a chance!

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Originally Posted by WARHORSE

Simmons is luggage. His ineffectiveness at the breakdown and cleanout was put under the microscope on Rugby HQ. He is also shite at carrying the ball over the advantage line and offloading. He is toilet

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I thought the analysis was flawed in this instance. Kafer banged on incessantly about Simmons being present every time the ball was turned over, however the vision told a story which could be interpreted in several different ways. In only one ruck which was shown was there anybody other than Simmons competing for Australia. I thought (for once) he was hard done by, since the real problem with turnover wasn't so much Simmons being ineffective, but Simmons being alone.

Now I would assume an international forward with eleventy-something caps like Rob Simmons to be able to cope with a ruck on his own from time to time, to be one man against two or three raging Springboks for most of the night will inevitably lead to you losing a couple.

I think Rob Simmons was hatcheted so they could paper over the obvious selection disaster of having Hooper, Higginbotham and Skelton on the field at the same time, thus making it virtually impossible for the team to have more than one forward in any breakdown contest.

Look at the difference once a seagull was taken off and replaced with a breakdown specialist....magically, the turnovers stopped and we started to win some of our own.

The lineout wasn't the disaster I expected and Simmons was present in the last 30-odd minutes when the Wallabies actually looked in control of the game.

I've been pretty vocal against Rob Simmons in the past, but credit where credit's due, he was one of the forwards who DIDN'T require replacing after the first half.