Former Australia skipper Michael Hooper has thrown his weight behind Tane Edmed to be the Wallabies’ starting fly-half when they meet New Zealand in their Rugby Championship Test later this month.
The All Blacks are set to host the Wallabies in the first of two eagerly anticipated Bledisloe Cup encounters at Eden Park in Auckland on September 27 with the second clash scheduled to take place at Optus Stadium in Perth seven days later.
The Rugby Championship is evenly poised after four rounds of action with just two points separating the competing nations in the standings.
At the summit
Australia are sitting pretty at the top of the table with 11 points while the Boks and All Blacks are level on 10 and Argentina occupy fourth position just a point adrift.
The fly-half position has been a troublesome one for Wallabies head coach Joe Schmidt in 2025 as he already used five players in that role during his team’s eight matches played so far this year.
They are: Noah Lolesio, Ben Donaldson, Tom Lynagh, James O’Connor and Edmed and the latter wore the number 10 jersey at the weekend as Argentina edged out the Wallabies 28-26 in Sydney.
It was the 25-year-old’s first start at Test level and it showed as he battled to stamp his authority on the match.
Edmed eventually only played for 55 minutes, before being replaced by O’Connor, and at the time Australia were trailing Argentina 25-7.
O’Connor’s introduction sparked the Wallabies’ attack into life but despite his efforts, Los Pumas held on for a narrow victory.
Despite his underwhelming performance, Hooper, who played alongside Edmed at Super Rugby level for the Waratahs, believes his former team-mate deserves another chance to start at fly-half for the Wallabies when they face off against the All Blacks at Eden Park in their next Test.
“I’d like to see Tane started again. I think we’ve all agreed that it would be great to have James on the bench, but it’d be tough to come in for a game for a start and then get dropped,” he said on Stan Sport’s Inside Line show.
“That’s a bit of a storyline. Then you set up, you’ve got to perform in one game or you’re out.”
Fellow rookie playmaker Lynagh was the player who Schmidt backed as his first choice fly-half for the first two Tests during the Wallabies’ series against the British & Irish Lions earlier this year.
However, he has been struggling with concussion and hamstring issues during the Rugby Championship.
Lynagh missed out on last weekend’s clash with Argentina in Sydney due to that tight hamstring – after he started against Los Pumas in Townsville the previous week – and although he is fit again to face the All Blacks at Eden Park, Hooper believes Edmed should continue at fly-half for the Wallabies.
“I’d go Tane again. And I think Tom would be a natural fit onto the bench,” he added.
“I think it’d be nice to see Tane get another go at it. What I really liked about Tane’s performance, he was very vocal. And the Wallabies’ 10 at the moment isn’t the guy that’s doing the steps and doing the chips to himself.
“He’s actually largely a facilitator. Now you’ve got Jake Gordon, who’s going to be fit and ready. Tate’s (McDermott) been looking fantastic, so a lot of the Wallabies’ play actually comes from the nine in the shape that they run.
Really nice things
“We see some big errors, and they look like big errors, but that’s not the whole piece of what he’s doing. From what I saw, there were some really nice things, the 50/22 that he cuts back down the edge (against Argentina).
“Like that’s good vision and even after a couple of mistakes, good confidence to be able to pull the trigger on that.
“So I like that as a former captain, seeing a 10 step up and go: ‘Na, I saw that and I’m gonna bang, I’m gonna hit it. So it shows that, OK, well, he’s made a couple of mistakes, that’s good, but he’s still able to stay in the game.”
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