{"id":94419,"date":"2025-08-25T10:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/94419\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:18:08","slug":"why-john-eales-believes-captaincy-will-propel-fraser-mcreight-to-elite-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/94419\/","title":{"rendered":"Why John Eales believes captaincy will propel Fraser McReight to elite territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wallabies legend John Eales believes the nation\u2019s captaincy will prove the making of Fraser McReight, and transform him from one of the world\u2019s leading flankers to an all-time great of Australian rugby.<\/p>\n

Despite not having the \u2018c\u2019 next to his name at clubland for the Queensland Reds, McReight was named to replace Super Rugby Pacific teammate Harry Wilson in the side\u2019s Test defeat to South Africa after the latter succumbed to a knee injury.<\/p>\n

While the Wallabies were unable to back up their Ellis Park heroics, suffering a 30-22 defeat amid a host of injury concerns,<\/a> McReight\u2019s typically relentless nature was on show \u2013 topping the clash in the tackle count (17 for no misses) as he sought to galvanise his under siege troops.<\/p>\n

\"Fraser<\/p>\n

Fraser McReight goes over for a try but it\u2019s disallowed.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Eales, speaking from Ballymore at the book launch of his former coach John Connolly\u2019s biography, said history\u2019s best teams each possessed a number of captaincy options.<\/p>\n

McReight\u2019s succession of Wilson \u2013 who is in line to return for Saturday\u2019s clash against Argentina, and will likely take back the captaincy \u2013 was indicative of the direction the Wallabies were heading, according to the former World Cup-winning skipper.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s definitely heading that way,\u201d Eales said, when asked if the captaincy would unlock McReight and forge his path towards being one of the country\u2019s finest players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the No.7s we\u2019ve had over the years, we\u2019ve had some pretty good ones \u2013 Jeff Miller, Dave Wilson, George Smith, Phil Waugh \u2013 and I think Fraser, the way he plays the game, the influence he has on the game and the amount of touches and impacts he has is pretty special.<\/p>\n

\u201cFraser\u2019s one of these guys who is so consistent week in, week out, and I think that\u2019s the first thing you need from your captain \u2013 they need to pick themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies legend John Eales believes the nation\u2019s captaincy will prove the making of Fraser McReight, and transform him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-94419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94419","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=94419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}