Michael Cheika counts cost of Bernard Foley's Australian sevens call-up

MICHAEL Cheika has expressed his frustration at losing Bernard Foley to Australian sevens duties for next month's World Cup.

Bernard Foley

MICHAEL Cheika has expressed his frustration at losing Bernard Foley for the Waratahs' clash against the British and Irish Lions because the in-form five-eighth has been drafted into the Australian sevens team for the World Cup next month.

But his simmering anger is likely to boil over if rising NSW halfback Matt Lucas is also named in the Australian sevens squad tomorrow, forcing him to miss the Lions encounter as well for a pre-World Cup training camp instead.

Both former sevens stars are understood to have been recalled to Michael O'Connor's young squad to provide leadership for the tournament, which will be held on June 29-30 in Russia. It is believed Reds winger Luke Morahan will also join O'Connor's squad.

In order to re-acclimatise to sevens, the Super Rugby players will enter camp in Queensland from June 11. NSW, who will already have been stripped of Wallabies players, meet the Lions on June 15.

"What is better for the players' development: a game against the Lions or to be in a camp to play sevens?" Cheika said.

"It is only a training camp. That's just the way I feel about the game. That's it, that's life. What do you do?"

Cheika said he had only traded emails with the ARU on sevens selections, and late yesterday believed Foley was his only loss.

"Other players were in the mix before and this is what they've nailed it down to," he said.

The Waratahs coach said he was content to lose players for Australian training camps -- Wallabies players will be withdrawn from the Tahs-Force game on June 9 -- but those making the selection calls should be judged on the results.

"Hopefully now around all of these decisions there is going to be more accountability on the end result," Cheika said.

"We are being made accountable for our results, as we should be, all the time. All this other cherry-picking will be accountable for the end result as well, making three weeks of training worth it.

"If we are all going to go into these camps and take these initiatives, at the back end of that there is accountability for everyone.

"If you are going to take players out of such a big game, for a training camp . . . if you are going to train for three weeks, you'd want to be coming back with a good result.

"If that's the objective, we think we're going to get a better result by training for sevens, then there should be accountability on that result.

"As long as they're up for that, then that's fine."