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'The only guy that has actually won anything': Jones finds gold in Wallabies captaincy
By Ned Lester
There was no shortage of shocks in Eddie Jones' Wallabies World Cup squad announcement, with notable names missing and young guns included. But the most unexpected call for one pundit was the captaincy.
Australia's captaincy has been thrown around the squad numerous times already despite Jones being in charge for just four games. James Slipper, Michael Hooper, Allan Alaalatoa and Tate McDermott have all shared the responsibility as Eddie Jones experimented with his lineup.
But the coach looked outside that group entirely when naming his captain for the Rugby World Cup, opting for La Rochelle beast Will Skelton to lead the charge in France.
Skelton is well-established in the European club scene as one of the world's finest locks but the 31-year-old has just 28 international caps to his name, with the majority of those being played in 2014-16.
The offer of leading the team surprised even the man himself, it wasn't an offer that Skelton accepted straight away but as soon as it was confirmed, his Wallaby teammates agreed it made sense for the team.
Pundits have shared a similar reaction, stating their surprise but ultimately supporting the call.
"The biggest thing that was a surprise for me was Will Skelton being named as captain," Former Maori All Black Bryn Hall told the Aotearoa Rugby Pod.
"Not even really talked about or having given captaincy a go in that environment, but for Eddie (Jones) doing that, Will's probably the only guy in that team that has actually won anything. And that's just being honest.
"Will Skelton's won with La Rochelle, he's obviously played in big European Championship games and has an understanding of what it looks like to win and by all accounts, he's actually really good with the younger guys from what I've heard from in camp. He's able to really connect with those younger boys and bring them in together and so I think he's definitely more of an actions person.
"I don't think anything will change around how he delivers or who he is as a person, it's just more so the vice captains, your Nic White, your Tate McDermott, your James Slipper. They'll be leading more of the messaging and the vocalness around that captaincy."
Skelton was indeed instrumental in La Rochelle's recent Champions Cup title runs, giving the lock invaluable experience that his Wallaby teammates simply don't have.
All but four of the Wallabies 33-man World Cup squad play in Super Rugby Pacific meaning outside of the Covid-forced Super Rugby AU, the players have not tasted success in a professional competition.
Former All Black James Parsons agreed the experience of winning was priceless and absolutely necessary in any leader but especially in a World Cup campaign. He added that the nature of captaincy has changed over the years and Skelton's experience in those Champions Cup finals runs would have given him the self-awareness to know his limitations, a key ingredient to being a great leader.
Perhaps most importantly, the giant lock has been in great form since returning to the Wallabies environment and will lead by example when the team get to France in under one month's time.
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Latest Comments
They would improve a lot of such a scheme were allowed though JD, win win :p
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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