Rugby Union: Wallabies threaten to boycott Bledisloe Test over date

Dave Rennie has warned Australia will boycott the first Bledisloe Cup Test rather than play less than a week out of quarantine.

Nineteen-year-old Waratahs prop Angus Bell is the youngest player in the Wallabies squad. Picture: Getty Images

No sooner had he announced his first Wallabies squad yesterday than coach Dave Rennie was warning that Australia would boycott the first Bledisloe Cup Test with the All Blacks rather than accept a situation where they were forced to play them less than a week out of quarantine.

The team announcement was stunning enough, with World Cup players Isi Naisarani, Tevita Kuridrani and Jack Dempsey all being left out of the 44-man squad for the two-Test series in New Zealand and the subsequent six-match Rugby Championship in Australia. But then Rennie dropped the real bombshell.

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“NZ Rugby has an expectation that we jump on a plane the day after the Super Rugby final (next Saturday in Canberra between the Brumbies and the Queensland Reds), have two weeks in quarantine where we can’t prepare as a team and then play a Test seven days later,” Rennie said. “Under those quarantine arrangements, I can assure you we will not be playing a Test in NZ that weekend.”

It was Kiwi quarantine arrangements that caused NZ to lose the hosting rights of The Rugby Championship to Australia in November-December. The NZ government has decreed that overseas arrivals must spend three days isolated in a hotel room. Then, if they pass a COVID test, they are able to train in groups of 10, progressing over time to 15 and eventually 25. Meanwhile, the All Blacks can train without restrictions.

It would not be until October 5 — just five days before the scheduled First Test, presumably at the All Black fortress of Eden Park in Auckland — that the Wallabies would be able to reconvene as a full party. “We will have some of our young guys introducing themselves to some of our other Wallabies two weeks into our camp,” said Rennie. “So it is unacceptable. Like I said, we won’t be playing a Test under those sorts of conditions.”

Rugby Australia accepts that NZ is devastated by the decision by SANZAAR last Friday to strip them of The Rugby Championship and send it to Australia, but it does not believe the All Blacks would accept a comparable situation that so blatantly favoured the Wallabies in Australia.

“We are not going to get pushed around by them,” RA chairman Hamish McLennan told The Australian. “It is unfair on the players.”

For 16 members of the 44-man squad, those selected for the Wallabies for the first time, it would be a nightmarish introduction to international football. A further 13 have yet to play more than 10 Tests — players such as Jake Gordon and fellow Waratah Harry Johnson-Holmes have only a single cap — while eight members of the touring party only made their Super Rugby debuts this year.

Rennie did acknowledge, hthat some members of the squad might not play Test football this year.

Unlike New Zealand, which started its domestic Super Rugby Aotearoa three weeks ahead of Australia and then cut the competition off short, having no finals, Australia has not gathered as a single team this year. While the All Blacks have been free to train for the past month, the Australian players have been concentrating instead on Super Rugby duties.

It seems astonishing that Naisarani, one of the Rebels’ standout players against the Reds in the qualifying final on Saturday, has been left out of the side. He was the starting No 8 in the World Cup quarter-final against England last October and is a devastating ballrunner.

“We know what he is capable of, but we’ve picked on form and we’ve certainly talked about earning the right to play and we think others have played better,” Rennie said. “He has been given feedback throughout the comp and I spoke to him again this morning.”

Dempsey, a reserve backrower in that World Cup quarter-final, Kuridrani — a 61-Test veteran for the Wallabies — and Reds brilliant, if understated fullback Jock Campbell, received similar consolation phone calls, although Rennie did hold out the possibility of players being reprieved later this year in the event of injuries.

While All Black coach Ian Foster named Sam Cane as captain back in May, Rennie continues to remain mum on who will lead the Wallabies, indicating he wanted to bring the players together before announcing the skipper. Certainly Michael Hooper showed great leadership at the Waratahs — even if not officially the captain — and odds are he will retain the job.

While the Brumbies had 13 players selected, the Reds and Tahs 11 apiece and the Rebels nine, no one from the Western Force disappointingly was deemed up to standard. Certainly backrower Brynard Stander mounted a strong case during Super Rugby AU, as did midfielder Kyle Godwin, although Rennie named two uncapped centres in his squad, in Brumbies bolter Len Ikitau and the Reds’ Hunter Paisami.

Wallabies squad: Jermaine Ainsley, Allan Alaalatoa, Tom Banks, Angus Bell, Filipo Daugunu, Pone Fa’amausili, Folau Fainga’a, Jake Gordon, Ned Hanigan, Will Harrison, Dane Haylett-Petty, Reece Hodge, Michael Hooper, Tom Horton, Trevor Hosea, Len Ikitau, Harry Johnson-Holmes, Marika Koroibete, Noah Lolesio, Jack Maddocks, Tate McDermott, Fraser McReight, James O’Connor, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Hunter Paisami, Jordan Petaia, Matt Philip, Joe Powell, James Ramm, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Pete Samu, Rob Simmons, Irae Simone, Scott Sio, James Slipper, Lachie Swinton, Matt To’omua, Taniela Tupou, Jordan Uelese, Rob Valetini, Nic White, Harry Wilson, Liam Wright, Tom Wright.