Smith and Waugh did it. So did Pocock and Hooper. Can McReight and Tizzano follow suit for the Wallabies?

The rise of Carlo Tizzano continues.

The 25-year-old was very good for the Western Force against the Brumbies last week, particularly if you concentrate on the part of the game where he wasn’t already strong.

Forget the tackling and the creating of turnovers, any assessment of Tizzano this year has to focus on his ball carrying because that’s the area where improvement is needed and is directly related to his obvious attempts to bulk up.

And there he was at the end of the Brumbies game, continually making hard yards with carries up the middle. Not the highlight reels big breaks in open space, but the vital two - or three - or four-metre carries that need him to win the first collision and propel himself forward.

It was a performance that sets up a high-quality duel with Reds No.7 Fraser McReight in Perth on Saturday, but this may not be an either/or selection debate when it comes to the Wallabies, despite Joe Schmidt’s reticence to use them together last year.

Two No.7s playing - and playing well together - for the Wallabies is a road well travelled. George Smith and Phil Waugh (2003 World Cup final), and David Pocock and Michael Hooper (2015 World Cup final) are prime examples.

Carlo Tizzano has been superb for the Force in 2025.Credit: Getty Images

When you look at the Six Nations this year, you see a lot of No.7s and not a lot of No.6s. Lions coach Andy Farrell is either going to have to pick second-rower such as Ollie Chessum or Tadhg Beirne, get one last campaign out of the retiring Peter O’Mahony, or go down the Wales and England route of picking a No.7 at No.6.

Even if he chooses one of the first two options, the sheer number of No.7 options he has this year lends itself to picking one on the bench - and a similar role for Tizzano becomes a real option.

Last weekend, for example, the Welsh picked opensides Jac Morgan at No.6 and Tommy Reffell at No.7, bringing an end to Warren Gatland’s attempt to make a Test No.6 out of players who just weren’t there yet.

Fraser McReight makes a break against Moana Pasifika.Credit: Getty Images

England have been going down that path for some time, and last week they started Tom Curry at No.6 with Ben Earl at No.7. When big No.8 Tom Willis was forced off after 36 minutes, England sent on Curry’s literal twin Ben, effectively giving them three openside flankers.

Morgan, Reffell, Earl, and the Currys are joined by Ireland’s Josh van der Flier and Scotland’s Rory Darge as British and Irish Lions No.7 options - and that’s not even including outstanding Englishman Jack Willis, who is playing at No.7 for French champions Toulouse (he is ineligible for England but eligible for the Lions).

Contrast that with the Lions’ options at No.6. The brilliant Beirne is probably the favourite, but there isn’t the same obvious depth available and it would be no surprise if the balance of their back row options are weighted towards opensides with a view to negating McReight and winning the battle on the ground.

Enter Tizzano. He suffered a rather brutal introduction to Test rugby last year when he debuted against the Springboks in Brisbane, but it was noticeable from the images of the Super Rugby Pacific season launch in February that he is now a more robust and thicker-looking player.

It’s reminiscent of the physical development McReight himself went through in the process of going from a Super Rugby standout to a proper Test player.

Tizzano now needs to deliver consistently tough performances to change Joe Schmidt’s thinking, because Tizzano and McReight are yet to share the field together for the Wallabies across Tizzano’s five Test appearances to date.

McReight’s hand injury played a role in this, but Schmidt did have opportunities to start one and use one off the bench on the end-of-season tour but preferred to use the Waratahs’ Langi Gleeson, whose Wallabies future now is unclear after his decision to leave Australia at the end of Super Rugby Pacific.

The preference to have a bigger body on the bench is understandable, but in a bit of an irony it might not be the path the Lions will go down.

Farrell must be thinking long and hard about how to accommodate two of his strong group of No.7 options in his Test 23, in anticipation that the Wallabies will want to play an uptempo game on home soil. Willis, Tom Curry and Jac Morgan, in particular, are appealing options given their form and presence off the ball.

If that’s the case, McReight and Tizzano might yet play together - even though they will be determined to beat the daylights out of one another in Perth on Saturday.