Seven years after last being called into the Wallabies squad, Brumbies lock Caderyn Neville is a chance of making his Test debut after being called into Dave Rennie's squad ahead of Bledisloe IV in Brisbane.
Neville's SOS comes with Lukhan Salakaia-Loto unlikely to be fit for Saturday's final Bledisloe Test, after being forced off early in the second-half during the All Blacks' Sydney onslaught.
The 31-year-old journeyman, who previously had stints with the Rebels and Reds, had arguably his best season to date at the Brumbies under Dan McKellar. Neville adequately filled the void left by Rory Arnold and Sam Carter.
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He will likely compete for a spot on the reserves against Trevor Hosea, with Test centurion Rob Simmons set to be promoted from the bench.
The other option, as Rennie said last Thursday when naming his side for Bledisloe III, would be to play an extra loose forward on the bench and shift Ned Hanigan to the second-row if necessary.
Elsewhere, Rennie is expected to make a number of other changes to his side from the one that suffered a record 43-5 trans-Tasman loss.
James O'Connor is expected to be fit from the MCL injury that saw him miss the heavy loss.
The fly-half's likely return could see Rennie promote a couple of his Reds teammates, with halfback Tate McDermott and centre Hunter Paisami looking threatening off the bench.
Brumbies flyer Tom Wright could also be in-line to make his debut after Filipo Daugunu's tough night at the office, where he had a miserable evening after being yellow carded in the opening minutes.
Tight-head prop Taniela Tupou is another that could return to provide some X-Factor despite Allan Alaalatoa's good stint.
The Wallabies returned to training at their training camp in the Hunter on Monday.
While the Wallabies weren't making any excuses for being well off the pace and losing the Bledisloe Cup for an 18th straight year, Fraser McReight, who was strong off the bench in his debut, said the experience would ultimately benefit the young side.
"Obviously perspective’s pretty big hey," McReight told reporters on Monday.
"Dave was big on saying we’re five-six weeks into a four-year campaign. I think for us, on the weekend, we had a lot of debutants and we probably had a lack of Test caps in the whole squad as well, so that’s a great step moving forward, people can get that experience, get that exposure at the top level and grow their games.
"Obviously having that game last weekend wasn’t what we wanted in terms of result, but it unearthed some new talents, people out their getting some exposure and hopefully a lot of lessons can be taken from that game, and moving forward we can build on that, get better and obviously strive for that 2023 World Cup."
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