It left him having to reshuffle hastily yet again on the eve of the match they must win if they\u2019re to avoid a record 10th loss in a calendar year and the first four-Test whitewash of any Wallabies touring side to Europe in 67 years.<\/p>\n
Amid a host of injuries and a desperate search to find an on-field controller amid their disintegrating campaign, the constant revolving door of fly-halves charged with shoring up an increasingly leaky vessel \u2014 nine changes in those 15 Tests in all \u2014 has seemed emblematic of the team\u2019s uncertain progress.<\/p>\n
There also felt a great irony on Friday that just when O\u2019Connor looked the safest pair of hands to replace code-hopper Gordon, he was nowhere to be seen, having been released from camp at the start of the week.<\/p>\n
So, instead, Tane Edmed<\/a>, who\u2019s struggled in the Tests, will now take the reins, with Hamish Stewart<\/a> on the bench.<\/p>\n Captain Harry Wilson<\/a> reported: \u201cHe\u2019s gutted \u2014 he\u2019s had a tough year, Carter. He\u2019s worked so hard since getting to this group, and he just hasn\u2019t been able to catch a break, and we all feel devastated for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Head-to-Head <\/p>\n Last 5 Meetings<\/p>\n Average Points scored<\/p>\n <\/p>\n O\u2019Connor\u2019s release had felt a puzzling one, especially as Schmidt had only drafted him back in the previous week and praised the freshness and leadership he had provided during the Test week in Dublin following crushing losses to England<\/a> and Italy.<\/p>\n But after his own disappointing outing against Ireland, he was let go, leaving Wilson to reflect: \u201cIf you could have forecasted a late injury like this, James would definitely been around.\u201d<\/p>\n After O\u2019Connor\u2019s exclusion, Schmidt was also quizzed on whether the 35-year-old still had an international future with the home World Cup looming, and he offered a real vote of confidence.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought Johnny Sexton<\/a> was outstanding in the last World Cup at 38 and James won\u2019t be as old as Johnny was at that stage, so I think age is probably not one of the numbers that necessarily tips the balance,\u201d said Schmidt.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen James first came in, it was really just to support the younger 10s and help them grow their own game. He was really useful in that regard and then stepped up and showed them how it was done as well.<\/p>\n \u201cSo having James in was still really good for Carter and Tane, particularly, to just have him in the opposition, giving them some feedback and then also see the manner in how he ran the team last week.\u201d<\/p>\n There was another eve-of-Test blow when hooker Billy Pollard<\/a>, who\u2019s played every Test this year, had to pull out with a hip injury, leaving Matt Faessler<\/a> to be moved up from the bench while Josh Nasser<\/a> will feature among the replacements.<\/p>\n Wilson promised one last blistering effort from his \u201churting\u201d Wallabies to end on a warming high in what\u2019s set to be an icily cold Stade de France.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t see the preparation we put in. We work so hard, training hard, we\u2019re doing everything we can to perform in the gold jersey, and it hasn\u2019t happened over the last month,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t put those performances in, so that\u2019s why I really, really hope that we go out there and do that this Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right until the bitter end of his trying 2025 campaign, Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt is being tormented by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-276988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763804053_685_806.png.webp\"\/)
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