Eddie Jones offered selection to any player in Australia good enough to bang the door down. Carter Gordon left it in splinters to earn his call-up.
Unless your name is Blake Schoupp or Josh Flook, no player in Super Rugby Pacific came from further back to make the coach’s first 33-man Wallabies training squad.
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The newest player auditioning for the gold No.10 jersey is there on hot form and because of the shrewd eye of a coach who knows a bit about what makes that position tick.
Jones will never find the same qualities again but playing his schoolboy and NSW rugby beside the gifted Mark Ella certainly means he knows some of the traits he wants in a budding No.10.
In this squad, there are players picked on untapped potential like underperforming Suliasi Vunivalu or the hope they can “find some more petrol” like 40-minute impact prop Pone Fa’amausili. Jones will see if he can find the key.
Jones will take three halfbacks to the World Cup in France so no Tate McDermott or Jake Gordon in this squad doesn’t mean curtains. It means Ryan Lonergan, as Nic White’s sidekick, has the first bite to make as big an impression as he can and the other two can fight on.
Other calls might be more defining moments. Jones has picked the uncapped Gordon and two-Test rookie Ben Donaldson ahead of Noah Lolesio, the 17-Test flyhalf experiment of the Dave Rennie era. You can add experienced duo Quade Cooper and Bernard Foley, Zoom-call flyhalves from Japan during the mid-April camp.
Lolesio continues to do some good things for the ACT Brumbies with neat passes, good goalkicking, team play and so on.
Gordon, at 21, always looks like he wants to boss the game under that dubious blond mullet of his. His fight in a losing cause when the Melbourne Rebels were down 19-0 against the Fijian Drua in Suva last Saturday caught Jones’s eye as had earlier displays this season.
He ran, he tackled in the frontline like few other flyhalves, he put his shoulder into more rucks than some No.10s do in a month, there were 45m exits with the boot, there were neatly delayed passes and work to wrap with energy in one try.
There were also missed tackles, kicking the ball dead in goal and spilling a sitter of a pass as well so work-ons for sure.
“I love his competitiveness,” Jones said.
“Knowing when to flatten and when to be deeper is a bit of a lost art. He’s been very good.
“He’s always in the fight and never beaten.”
That’s the DNA that Jones wants for the Wallabies.
Gordon is in the best form of his Rebels career. He’s a Sunshine Coast product who developed his rugby at Brisbane Boys’ College where Len Ikitau, Roger Gould, Will Genia, James Horwill and John Roe were also old boys.
He was signed by the Queensland Reds at 17 while still at school in 2018. Injuries, learning the professional game and being blocked for a run turned the Rebels into his home in 2021.
He has played fearlessly in losses to the Chiefs as well as March’s wins over the NSW Waratahs and Queensland Reds.
Flook, 21, would have been the youngest selected but for the prodigiously talented Max Jorgensen getting the chance to step up at 18.
It’s actually typical of the Queensland outside centre always flying a little below the radar, a little out of the main spotlight.
Flook is a modern version of former Wallaby skipper Andrew Slack with his unselfish play, his instinct for the position, his defence, his instinct and his teamwork.
Jones may have picked this team solo but he has canvassed input from many rugby minds he respects. He's also followed some sage advice handed down over generations from the likes of 82-year-old Bob Dwyer, coach of Australia’s 1991 World Cup-winning heroes.
“I’ve been impressed by his feel for the game after first seeing him in Narrabri (at the Reds-Waratahs trial). One of the things I learnt from Bob Dwyer was always try to pick guys with things you can’t coach,” Jones explained of Flook.
Jones pinpointed the recent Reds-Rebels game when Flook swooped from outside centre and took the perfect inside pass from James O’Connor to score.
“One of the things you can’t coach is the feel of the game. Looking at the try he scored (against the Rebels), he came from the opposite side of the scrum to take the pass from O’Connor,” Jones said.
“That's ability to read the game, instinctiveness. He seems to have a good head on him, good character and (he’s) hardworking.”
It has to be said, Jones has never seen any of these 33 players face-to-face at training. These players are picked but they still have to impress the coach on the training field.
Some will rise, some will confirm thoughts and some will sink.
A tip...the camp on the Gold Coast will be anything but a picnic.
WALLABIES SQUAD
Allan Alaalatoa, Ben Donaldson, Pone Fa'amausili, Josh Flook, Lalakai Foketi, Nick Frost, Langi Gleeson, Carter Gordon, Ned Hanigan, Reece Hodge, Michael Hooper, Jed Holloway, Len Ikitau, Max Jorgensen, Andrew Kellaway, Lachlan Lonergan, Ryan Lonergan, Fraser McReight, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Cadeyrn Neville, Jordan Petaia, David Porecki, Tom Robertson, Pete Samu, Blake Schoupp, James Slipper, Darcy Swain, Jordan Uelese, Rob Valetini, Suliasi Vunivalu, Nic White, Brad Wilkin, Tom Wright.
