Get your tickets to see the Wallabies take on Argentina in Townsville and Sydney!<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, the Reds’ utility player has put the time away from the gold jersey to good use.<\/p>\n
A strong season on his return from the Rebels saw him earn the Pilecki Medal winner as the Queensland Reds\u2019 best of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Combined with his re-signing with the Reds and Rugby Australia early this year, his decision to stay on Australian soil has proven the right one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough decision for me,\u201d the 12-capped Wallaby said to reporters when asked about his decision to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me to stay here in Australia, where I got my rugby start, was good.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great for me to stay, and also for my baby who was on the way. This was one of my main reasons for me to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s good to be back. I was in and out from the squad, but to be back here to this amazing group, I’m really proud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve learned a lot from everyone and I know we trust everyone. If you have the time to play, everyone can do their job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m grateful to be back again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daugunu provides several options for Joe Schmidt, having excelled in both the centres and on the wing for the Reds under Les Kiss.<\/p>\n
With several players out, most notably Tom Wright, Schmidt may opt for consistency in the current set up, or turn to players with a record under the high ball; something the Pumas targeted against New Zealand in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know they’re good on that, specifically on that,\u201d Daugunu said of the Pumas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for us, we just need to be ourselves and to prepare. We saw last week how they beat New Zealand, [and how they beat] the Lions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know they\u2019re going to be a tough team to beat.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us as a group, we’re going to prepare really well and look forward to the game. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filipo Daugunu was parachuted into the Wallabies squad following significant injuries to several key stars in Cape Town,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,2500],"class_list":["post-111763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-wallabies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}