Paul rakes selection coals

[Burgs]

Paul rakes selection coals (TEF?)

By Jon Geddes
June 20, 2007

BRUMBIES hooker Jeremy Paul is ready to answer an SOS from Australia selectors if the Rugby World Cup squad is hit by an injury crisis.

Paul, who made his comeback in a club game last weekend, said, however, that he was still concentrating on seeking a release from the Australian Rugby Union to go overseas.

"I would never turn my back on Australia if they had dire straits with injuries and they needed me,"' the 72-Test veteran said last night.

"At the end of the day, I think they should stick with the players they have got now because they are playing reasonably well."

Stephen Moore and Adam Freier are the current Wallabies hookers, with Tatafu Polota-Nau, who is the Australia A squad playing Fiji this weekend, also very much on the radar.

Paul, the surprise omission from the Wallabies squad for the tri-Nations, played his first game since the Super 14 last Saturday for Canberra club Royals.

He quickly ended speculation that the outing was the start of a rearguard campaign to win a spot in the Rugby World Cup squad.

"I have made a decision to move on and go to England, and hope the ARU will give me an early release," he said.

Paul, who has signed a contract to play with Gloucester, said he harboured no bitterness about his situation.

"I have loved everything about the Wallabies and enjoyed every moment of my time there," he said.

"I would never turn my back on what they have done for me over the last 10 years.

"But I just want to go to the next chapter of my life."

After missing the Rugby World Cup squad, Paul withdrew from the Australia A side with a shoulder injury.

He played for Royals last Saturday after a scan cleared him of any structural damage.

"I just wanted to do something and it's a bit of fun coming back and playing footy, and I had a ball," Paul said.

[frontrow]

He isn't saying it, but he would have to be dissapointed when watching the first woeful performances of friers and Moore in the wales games, and to a lesser extent the fiji game, and realising that he was ranked lower than those two...but as he says they are playing better now but it is a bitter pill for sure...