FEATURE Noah Lolesio spearheads Brumbies with Wallaby axe to grind

What do Lachlan and Ryan Lonergan, Caderyn Neville, Darcy Swain, Noah Lolesio, Len Ikitau and Tom Wright have in common? Yes, they are all Brumbies players – but more importantly, they are all Brumbies who were excluded from Wallaby selection for the World Cup.

Neville, Ikitau and Wright were first choices for previous coach Dave Rennie, but all were pushed from the centre to the periphery by successor Eddie Jones when he took over at the beginning of last year. The circumstances surrounding several omissions were nebulous, to say the least.

Ryan Lonergan was a part of every Wallaby squad selected by Jones, until the final one that really mattered. Ikitau, one of the foremost outside centres in world rugby and one of the few truly blue-chip players available to the new head honcho, was excluded on injury grounds when other injured backs, such NSW back-three Max Jorgensen, were picked. As the Canberra man told rugby.com.au afterwards: “I was in contact with the doctor and they had me on a conditioning programme for a couple of weeks. They had this one-off Wallabies training if you were based in Brisbane. It was myself, Quade [Cooper], Taniela [Tupou] and the rest of the Brisbane boys.

“When they said they were announcing, they were going to call all the players the night before, and it wasn’t until 9.30 pm when I thought ‘what the hell is going on?’

“I get a message from ‘Webby’ [team manager Chris Webb] ‘get in touch with Eddie, he’ll let you know what your plans are’. I was like: ‘does that mean I’m not in the squad?’ and he confirmed [that it was].”

“I was just disappointed at the comms I received. A good head coach would have called you and told you why you weren’t in the team, but at the end of the day we got the manager doing the rounds.

“I was disappointed with that and the reasoning [behind it]. [They said] they didn’t want to take injured players [but] there were three or four injured guys in there.

“It was quite disappointing – at least be honest [about] the reason I wasn’t in the team.”

In the event, only six Brumbies were selected in Jones’ squad of 33, one fewer than the number picked from both the Queensland Reds and the Melbourne Rebels, and two fewer than the eight New South Welshmen. It was a strange distribution, given the Brumbies were the top-ranked Australian franchise in Super Rugby Pacific, and the only Aussie club to advance to the semi-final stage. As far as trans-Tasman rivalry goes, the Australian flag has been flying proudest in Canberra for most of the last decade.

The Ponies were born out of a natural sense of grievance as the ‘third province’ behind New South Wales and Queensland, and they have always thrived and drawn strength from their station as an outcast defying the odds. That will be especially true now, as the sweepings from Jones’ World Cup debacle are pored over and forensically re-examined by a very different new head man, Kiwi Joe Schmidt.

The ex-Ireland coach has already demonstrated his commitment to the breakdown with the reappointment of Brumbies specialist ‘Lord’ Laurie Fisher, and several players from the franchise will come back into consideration simply because of their diligence in that area of the game.

The three Brumbies backs who stand to benefit from Schmidt’s arrival immediately are Ikitau, Lolesio and Tom Wright. Lolesio spent the latter portion of 2023 with RC Toulon in the Top 14, as a ‘joker’ covering the absence of Welshman Dan Biggar during the World Cup. Like Ikitau, Lolesio was left dumbstruck by Jones’ World Cup picks.

“When I found out that I wasn’t going to the World Cup, it was very disappointing,” he said. “When I was in France and they told us the squad, I was even angrier. Not just for myself, but for other [Canberra] boys that should have been in there as well. It was a frustrating time.”

He struck up an unlikely alliance with Welsh demigod Alun Wyn Jones at the club, and that prompted the 24 year-old to remember his reasons for playing the game in the first place.

“He was sort of like my dad when I was over there. I wasn’t expecting him to be so down to earth considering his resumé…

“The one thing I got the most out of my time in Toulon is just the enjoyment of footy and seeing how many people actually love the game over there.”

“It was just very refreshing for me to be in a different country, a different rugby environment; different rugby style of play, different lifestyle. It helped [me rediscover] my love of the game.”

The cut-throat nature of Top 14 competition – it is the only Tier One professional tournament which still applies promotion and relegation – demands ice-veined goalkicking, and Lolesio has returned from Europe as the best Australia has to offer in that department. He currently sits at 83% conversion rate, with 19 successful kicks out of 23 attempted after round five of Super Rugby.

With the ball in play, the most intriguing aspect is the relationship Lolesio has forged with full-back Wright. The obvious synergy between the pair on attack may yet carry both back in on the tide, from the periphery into the very centre of Schmidt’s Wallaby planning.

Wright and Lolesio have a natural urge to combine on a rugby field, and when they do the result is more than the sum of the individual parts. The following clips come from the round five demolition of Moana Pasifika.

The natural play on this kick return, and the option preferred by Brumbies number 11 Corey Toole, is clearly to shift the ball further out to the open-side wing. But Wright chooses to bend his run back towards Lolesio instead, and create a line-break assist for his brother-in-arms.

The synergy between the two multiplied as the half wore on.

This clip describes just how intuitively Lolesio and Wright combine in their decision-making before the next phase ever materialises. As he retires from the previous play, Lolesio is already scanning the narrow side for weaknesses – and he likes what he sees. Wright is called over from the open-side to the blind to provide the cutting edge, and the 10 sets him up for the break against an overmatched Moana Pasifika forward.

When the pair move, they tend to shift together, as if bonded by the invisible thread of a shared idea.

Both Lolesio and Wright are stacked behind the ruck as the ball is won, and both shift instinctively over to the short-side as the next phase unwinds. It is noticeable try scorer Corey Toole also has an invite to the Wright/Lolesio WhatsApp group, and appears very much on the same page.

When your two primary play-makers and your main finisher are all riding the same zeitgeist, distances and field position mean much less with ball in hand, because the understanding is so well knitted together.

Wright sees the space out to the wide right and relays his ‘spot’ to Lolesio, and Toole makes the killing break before linking back inside to – you guessed it –Wright for a canter to the sticks.

One of the big differences between Lolesio pre- and post-his Top 14 experience in France is that revived enjoyment has simultaneously unlocked a new confidence. That self-belief had virtually evaporated by the end of the Rennie era. Lolesio only enjoyed five touches at first receiver in the one-point defeat by Italy in November 2022. That was fewer than both a second-row [Will Skelton] and a centre [Hunter Paisami].

It was soul-crushing stuff. But on Saturday evening, Lolesi had 13 touches at first receiver and another four at second. The trust and trajectory of a promising career is being restored.

As soon as the referee calls a penalty to the Brumbies, Lolesio calls the flat line of chase for a short chip. Number 13 Hudson Creighton duly gets the first touch and finishes the move after another important involvement by Toole on the right.

That highlighted the returning confidence to back himself and vary the play by using Wright as a decoy.

There is an option to spread the ball wider and pick out Wright on the second pass in another penalty advantage play, but Lolesio prefers to set up big raw-boned Charlie Cale on the in-pass instead.

Several Brumbies will be walking ‘Redemption Road’ as the Jones era ends, and the Schmidt epoch begins. Historically, Brumbies always go best when they have an axe to grind. They will be chippy and focused, an underdog ready to turn the tables. It is the Nic White in them coming out. And just like ‘Whitey’, rather more than a couple of them are quite capable of becoming mainstays in Schmidt’s brave new Wallaby world.