Legendary Wallaby Matt Giteau has given his verdict on the instant impact made on debut by Test newcomer Miles Amatosero.
The recently turned 24-year-old was chosen on the bench last weekend versus Italy in what was Joe Schmidt’s final match in charge of Australia before handing the reins over to Les Kiss.
With the victory already in the bag in the Nations Championship match in Perth that the Wallabies eventually won 58-10 after leading 38-5 at the interval, the Waratahs second-row was whisked into the action as a 58th-minute replacement for Jeremy Williams.
Eight minutes later, the rumbustious Test-level rookie, who began 2026 with an infamous Waratahs training ground bust-up where he was suspended after hitting Angus Scott-Young, faced his debut moment of truth when things took a fractious turn for the worse after Italian Andrea Zambonin was tackled into touch.
“He’s a great bloke, a true-blue Aussie…”
With the play stopped, Amatosero became involved in a tempestuous jersey-tugging clash with Danilo Fischetti and after the pair crashed into the seats on the Italian bench, the substituted tighthead Marco Riccioni joined the fray by punching the Australian.
Riccioni was red-carded for his intervention and subsequently suspended, but the role played by Amatosero in the incident came up for review on this week’s Kick Offs and Kick Ons show.
Wallabies prop Angus Bell, who roomed with Amatosero, was asked for his thoughts about the Test newcomer and the discussion ended with the legendary Giteau speaking admirably about the second-row who learned his trade with Clermont in France before taking up an offer at the Waratahs.
Asked for his thoughts on how his roommate handled his Test-level debut, Bell said: “It was awesome. He’s a great bloke, a true-blue Aussie. He loves Australia, and he loves the Wallabies.
“It was just cool seeing his family there, his partner, both mums. It was just awesome, and his sister with the little kids too. He thoroughly deserved it, and he is quite a big, scary dude, so he’s good to have on your team.
“He has got a big future ahead. He’s young as well, but he has got quite an old head on his shoulders. Milo was unreal on the weekend, I thought he did really well when he came on.”
Asked specifically about the red-carded fight that unfolded, Bell continued: “I looked up at the screen and they both sort of disappeared underneath the advertising and I was like, ‘Miles has 100 per cent punched him. 100 per cent’.
“And then Miles was like, ‘No, no, no, he only pushed me on the shoulder’, and I like, ‘That’s good’ because if he had pushed him anywhere else it was exploding.”
Giteau chimed in: “I thought he did phenomenally well. He plays an aggressive style so as soon as he pulls that jumper over, I thought there is a couple of uppercuts going on here.” Bell replied: “That’s exactly what I thought; I was saying, ‘Oh no!’”
Show presenter James Rochford then interjected: “Talking about the likeness to Will Skelton, one of the first things he does is he doesn’t take a backward step. He gets straight in there, which is what Will did in that Lions tour. It was freaky.”
Giteau replied: “Even last year when he first came on for the ‘Tahs, just watching him, I didn’t know much about him and I was like, this kid loves a smack, he loves the physicality.”
While Amatosero is only starting in his international career, the 25-year-old Bell is a seasoned Test player at loosehead and he returned to feature in Australia’s recent matches following a northern hemisphere season with Ulster, the Belfast-based Irish club.
“I loved my time in Ulster; it was everything I thought it was going to be,” he said about a stint that began with a debut last December. “I made some really good friends, experienced that sort of footy in the URC [United Rugby Championship] where it’s different challenges week to week and different players.
“Similar to what Australia is like, the culture in Northern Ireland is very similar. You’d have a beer after the game; that’s completely accepted. You all spent time together. Northern Ireland, with its terrible weather, the best thing is you have your mates there.
“It was a really cool culture and a tight-knit group. I really loved and enjoyed it. It was good to get away and play overseas and then come back into the Wallabies, which was another massive honour.”
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Despite only winning one of their three matches in the Southern Series, hammering Italy after defeats to Ireland and France, the Wallabies scrum that Bell was part of came in for kudos.
“It’s a hard one to comment on because week to week is a different challenge and depending on selection, you have got so many different factors of who’s behind you, the person next to you, who they pick.
“We were really happy with the Irish and the French games; we felt like we were dominating in the scrums, and then the Italians, it’s probably what I have to learn and different players in the squad that every week is changing pictures.
“The Italians were very messy and hard to scrum against. It wasn’t as good as we thought it was going to be, but it’s definitely going in the right direction. I’ll put that down to Allan (Alaalatoa). He’s my MVP for the last three games; he has been unbelievable.”
Australia’s round three win over the Italians featured a try hat-trick for second-row Josh Canham. “He’s a humble sort of bloke,” said Bell about his pack colleague. “He has come on this year like a house on fire.
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“He is running the lineout, which is another massive thing. Our locks, Jeremy Williams and Josh, have been unbelievable. They have got quite a good partnership now. Jeremy is powerful, an unbelievable defender of the lineout and has that real good connection with Allan on the tighthead side of the scrum.
“Josh looks a bit slender, but he is 6ft 8 and about 117/118 kilos; he’s a big lad and he can move. It’s exciting for him and again the squad to build those connections and move forward. We have a couple of tough games coming up against the Japanese that will be awesome, but Josh played super well and to get three tries is pretty amazing.”
The two-game series against the Japanese, which opens in Hanazono on August 8 and concludes in Townsville the following weekend, will be the Wallabies’ first matches with Kiss at the helm.
Bell isn’t expecting a major upheaval when the squad assembles next Tuesday to begin preparations under its new management. “They have been around in camp, a lot of the support staff, a few of the other coaches, Les was in and around last week.
“Les and Joe coaching together, they pretty much know what they want to do. I don’t think it will change much; it will be pretty similar. Change is the spice of life, and we are changing again, so it will be cool. If Les wants to do something, we have just got to fully commit to it.”