We want guys that are desperate to be Wallabies Lolesio called into spring tour squad

Quade Cooper’s withdrawal from the spring tour has forced the Wallabies to put Noah Lolesio on the next flight to London and rubber stamp the return of Kurtley Beale.

The Wallabies’ spring tour woes deepened on Thursday when Cooper was a confirmed non-starter for the final three Tests of the season.

Noah Lolesio will join the Wallabies for the remainder of the spring tour.Credit:Getty

“He’s torn: he wants to be here, he wants to be a Wallaby, but he feels loyalty to his club,” Wallabies coach Dave Rennie said of Cooper’s withdrawal.

“In the end, he has made a decision he feels is the right one. He’s made a decision that’s best for him.

“Look, ideally, we want guys that are desperate to be Wallabies. I know Quade says he is, but he’s torn. If he had the support of the club and the blessing of the club, he would have come, but he hasn’t.”

Combine Cooper’s absence with Reece Hodge’s unavailability due to a pectoral injury and the Wallabies felt they had little choice but to call up Lolesio.

Rennie left Lolesio in Australia to spend the pre-season working on a game that has not yet flourished at Test level, but without Cooper and Hodge, the only No.10 option the Wallabies have at their base in Brighton is James O’Connor.

“If we had Hodgey here we would have resisted that [calling in Lolesio], to try and get the off-season program that we wanted for him. We will try and do both with him here,” Rennie said.

“[Lolesio] has played a lot of footy for us, he understands our structures, he can slot in seamlessly.

“If we thought Quade wasn’t going to tour, Noah would have travelled [initially].”

With the uncertainty around the Japan-based trio now settled, Rennie tried to explain how the Wallabies found themselves in such a mess ahead of the final three Tests of the season.

“All I’ll say is I spoke to those boys when we were on the Gold Coast,” Rennie said. “They said they had concerns around their club and how their club would feel about them travelling.

“They all assured me they were keen to travel and, for that reason, we got into negotiations with the clubs. They weren’t happy to be Reg 9’d [a World Rugby rule that forces clubs to release players for international duty], and for us to just go in and tell the clubs we were taking them.

“And, hence, the reason we had multiple Zoom meetings to try and sort through the problem.

“It took a bit of flexibility from both parties but, in the end, you’ve seen the result.”

The messy situation has also shaped how Rennie views the policy of picking overseas-based players in 2022 and beyond.

“From a Reg 9 perspective, with the South Africans, Argentinians and others â€" a lot of the [Pacific] Island teams â€" the European clubs are used to dealing with that,” Rennie said.

“They sign those players knowing they can be taken away from a Reg 9 perspective. Perhaps the Japanese clubs have taken these guys on, not expecting them to be away.

“When we first bought these boys back in when we were in Australia, my thought process was that they’d be available for all Reg 9 Tests.

“Probably what it highlights is discussing this stuff with the clubs early on was important. In the end, we spent a lot of time doing that.

“I’m not sure if we’d do things drastically differently but, certainly, my mindset was that the players would be keen to play. But they wanted the support of the club.”

Watch every match of the Wallabies, All Blacks & Springboks Spring Tours on the home of rugby, Stan Sport. Wales v New Zealand streaming ad-free, live and on-demand this Sunday from 3.05am AEDT.

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