The Rugby Championship: Wallabies – Fitness, lineout concerns behind Will Skelton’s omission from tour to South Africa & Argentina

Published 18 September 2014 | By nortie
Will Skelton

Concerns over Will Skelton’s fitness ensured he will be left behind from Wallabies tour.

Will Skelton is already triple-XL. The challenge is ensuring his supersub role doesn’t lead to another “X” or two, according to Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie.

Concerns about dwindling fitness as a bench specialist, and the linked issue of not being a lineout jumper, were on Wednesday identified as the reasons behind Skelton being left out of the Wallabies’ squad to tour South Africa and Argentina next week.

Fox Sports

In a 28-man party that also saw Will Genia, Benn Robinson and Joe Tomane return, McKenzie named just three locks for the tough road trip.

When travelling to the land of the Springbok giants, it would seem wise to take one of your own but 140kg Skelton will be left behind to play three games in the NRC for Sydney Stars.

Skelton, who hasn’t been part of the Wallabies 23-man squad for the last two Tests, has played only 106 minutes of rugby since the Super Rugby final and McKenzie indicated he was concerned about the 22-year-old’s conditioning.

Concerns over Will Skelton’s fitness ensured he will be left behind from Wallabies tour.Source: News Corp Australia
“We think it’s better if he plays full matches. If you look at the way we have been playing, we cover a lot of territory and that’s physically challenging,” McKenzie said.

“The cameo bit is good but we have players doing that who have different skills, too.

“He is a guy we like … but he is still a young player, so he doesn’t tick every box. We have been working on various skills, and part of that is also match fitness, and getting time on the field. We’ve pretty much made a decision that the best thing for him at the moment is to play.”

Asked if he felt Skelton was carrying excess weight due to a lack of game time, McKenzie said he was “still growing”.

“He has a bigger challenge because he is just a massive guy. That’s a plus for us, but also, if you’re not playing football it makes it harder to maintain your match condition,” McKenzie said.

“We have to make sure we can control … and he has to learn to control his condition. His body is growing whether he likes it or not. We have to manage that.

“The game is aerobic. It needs skill, it needs power, it needs aerobic, it needs all of those things, so we have to manage players on and off the field.”

Skelton was used primarily as a bench forward for the Tahs and started in just one of his three Tests (in which he was man-of-the-match against France in June.)

That role has plenty to do with the fact he is too heavy to jump in the lineout. Skelton won only three throws all season for NSW and though they successfully adapted, McKenzie is keener to use four specialist jumpers in Africa.

“There are a lot of things you have to cover around lineout, we are playing one of the best. against the Matfields and the like, there are a lot of microskills,” McKenzie said.

“The lineout is certainly an important sector of the game.”

The debate will rage on, but given the loss of Wycliff Palu and Tatafu Polota-Nau for the tour, it can be argued the importance of Skelton’s physicality — and offloading — is more important than ever amid a stable of workhorses. Though he only averaged 44 minutes a game all Super season, Skelton was Australia’s ninth-best offloader.

“I am pretty happy with the guys we’ve got,” McKenzie said.

“The game of rugby is about brawn but it is about brains too, so you have to find ways through the games. There are different ways of doing it. That’s one of the beauties of the game, so I am not worried about that.”

McKenzie acknowledged the Wallabies had to work on turning potential to win in Cape Town into reality, and said the game carried big stakes.

“You have to have the potential, and we definitely went to Auckland in that space and came up short,” he said.

“Now is another significant moment, the next ten days there are opportunities there that can create reputation and create credibility.”

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