Ben Donaldson has allegedly been dropped from the Wallabies squad ahead of their crunch matches against the All Blacks in rounds five and six of the Rugby Championship.
The 26-year-old is reportedly “gutted” to be missing out on the final round of matches, with Joe Schmidt calling him earlier today to give him the bad news.
The Western Force star has been a key member of the Wallabies squad for the past three years, but has been overlooked for the upcoming matches, as the Australian head coach looks elsewhere.
Schmidt has elected to stick with the young prospect Tom Lynagh, despite his dubious form in the gold shirt, while also sticking with Tane Edmed after gifting him the starting berth against Argentina last weekend.
Also reportedly in Schmidt’s plans is the vastly experienced James O’Connor, who gets another crack at the whip after an assured return to international duties.
O’Connor to “fly under the plane”
James O’Connor made it pretty clear that he intends to complete the Rugby Championship with the squad, telling the GBRAUNZ podcast on Monday: “I want to, I’ve made it pretty clear that I want to play. Joe’s still talking with Leicester at the moment,
“I’ll bloody do what my dog’s doing and fly under the plane to get back.
“I land Tuesday, England time. Me, the missus and the dog are all on the same flight but he stays over for an extra day.
“We’ll pick him up on Wednesday, head up to the new house, get settled in and then I’m more than happy to fly straight back.”
Billy Proctor faces calls to be dropped
On the other side, All Blacks centre Billy Proctor has faced calls to be dropped by ex-New Zealand international Justin Marshall on The Rugby AUNZ podcast.
Speaking to Ex-Wallabies hooker Jeremy Paul, Marshall said: “He played his best Test on the weekend, and I don’t think he is playing poorly. But I just don’t feel that we have enough danger out there.”
Instead, Marshall believes that Leicester Fainga’anuku has the right skillset to pack enough punch to dent the Wallabies’ gainline.
“He has a great offload, great power when he has two defenders on him,” the 52-year-old said.
“But if you watched him in the Tasman game, now I know it is only NPC compared to a Test match, but three or four times I saw him just pre-contact, when he had defenders sweating all over him, he ripped a pass away.”