Wallabies v England: Skelton and Simmons in as Cheika makes changes

Australia will field its third second-row pairing in as many Tests against England in Sydney.

Will Skelton has been called into the Wallabies’ second row to face England in Sydney. Picture: Mark Evans

Australia will field their third second-row pairing in as many Tests after Will Skelton and Rob Simmons convinced Wallabies coach ­Michael Cheika they are, respectively, fit and serious for the final showdown against Eddie Jones’s England in Sydney tomorrow.

To be fair, Cheika hasn’t been convinced to date that Skelton is fully fit nor Simmons fully serious for Test football. As the man who discovered Skelton and gave him his chance in Super Rugby, he is fully aware that he takes an awful lot to get the 24-year-old conditioning up to Test level.

“He’s a big guy,” said Cheika. “If he’s not at that fitness (level), he can’t play international footy.”

Simmons has fallen short in other areas, it seems. He was left out of last week’s Melbourne Test and while most people thought he was being rested because of an injured back, Cheika went out of his way to make it known that he had, in fact, been dropped.

“He was fit for that game and I don’t want to play on the negative but I didn’t like what he brought into the game at the start. He’s (been) the number one lock in Australia for a long time and I want him to be playing better, not just enough. Because he’s got it in him. If he didn’t have it in him, I wouldn’t do that. I’d say ‘play again’. But I know he’s got a lot more in him,” he said.

Based on the way he has “bitten back at training”, Simmons would now seem to be fully across what Cheika demands of his Test locks. Hopefully, the same also applies to Rory Arnold, Sam Carter and James Horwill, who have been used in the second row earlier in the series but now find themselves out of the match-day squad. Uncapped Force lock Adam Coleman is now in line to make his debut if he survives the match-day 23 cut.

If he does, he will be the first Tasmanian to play rugby for Australia since brothers Jack and Eric Ford more than 86 years ago.

As in the previous 14 Tests that Skelton has played, his presence impacts on the Australian lineout. He literally is too big at 140kg to be lifted and regularly is deployed to the backline whenever the sideline set piece is under way, although he surely could make a considerable nuisance of his 2m frame simply by standing on tiptoe at number two in the lineouts.

Still, that leaves Australia with only two recognised jumpers, Simmons and flanker Scott Fardy, unless the little-used aerial skills of No 8 Sean McMahon are pressed into service.

“It always impacts on our lineout so I’ve got to be crafty but I’ve been really pleased with our lineout,” said Cheika. “I think it’s improved from the World Cup. We’ve won nearly all of our ball but something hasn’t been right. Accuracy is an important part of that.”

Cheika expects Jones to finally unleash his England players, now that he has taken an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the three-Test series.

“I’ll probably take a guess that they’ll run a bit more this week. They’ll probably throw it around a bit more,” Cheika said.

“I reckon they might try to play more footy, so they’ll be an interesting challenge for us to defend that because they’ve got some very good attacking players.”

Jones last night named an unchanged XV, save for the replacement of openside flanker James Haskett – who has not recovered from a foot injury – by Northampton backrower Teimana Harrison.

The selection of the hard-tackling NZ-born Harrison in place of onballer Jack Clifford suggests Jones intends to grind the series out right to the end. Yet Jones has been insistent on one point this week: that he is intent on winning the series 3-0.

“What would the All Blacks do?” he asked, raising the spectre of the side he wants England to replace as the world No 1.

Already England have displaced Australia as No 2 in the world and they haven’t achieved those heights by playing any meaningful rugby.

England’s purpose in Melbourne was to play rope-a-dope rugby, letting the Wallabies’ waves of attack break on the rock of their defence. –They put no players into the breakdown but spread in defence and waited to tackle. If England are to come away with a 3-0 result, that would be the easiest way to achieve it.

Australia: Israel Folau; Dane Haylett-Petty, Tevita Kuridrani, Matt Toomua, Rob Horne (vc); Bernard Foley, Nick Phipps; Sean McMahon, Michael Hooper (vc), Scott Fardy, Rob Simmons, Will Skelton, Sekope Kepu, Stephen Moore (c), James Slipper. Reserves: (one player to be omitted): Tatafu Polota-Nau, Scott Sio, Greg Holmes, Adam Coleman, Dean Mumm, Wycliff Palu, Nick Frisby, Christian Lealiifano, Taqele Naiyaravoro.

England: Mike Brown; Anthony Watson, Jonathan Joseph, Owen Farrell, Jack Nowell; George Ford, Ben Youngs; Billy Vunipola, Teimana Harrison, Chris Robshaw, George Kruis, Maro Itoje, Dan Cole, Dylan Hartley (c), Mako Vunipola.Reserves: Jamie George, Matt Mullan, Paul Hill, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes, Jack Clifford, Danny Care, Elliot Daly.