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The news that Wallabies lock Rob Simmons has been ruled out of both Bledisloe Cup Tests has come, as most injuries tend to, at the worst possible time.
Simmons will undergo surgery in Brisbane today for an injury to his scaphoid (one of the carpal bones in the wrist), and is expected to make a full recovery before the Wallabies take on the USA in Chicago on September 5.
But there will still be some serious clenching around the selection table over the next couple of weeks.
Strangely, the Wallabies have not called in any replacement players. The 31-man squad named on Friday contained four locks, meaning James Horwill, Will Skelton, and Dean Mumm are now certain to play this Saturday in Sydney.
Flanker Scott Fardy, or possibly Horwill, will become the chief lineout caller, unless Mumm shifts into the starting XV.
In the background, recently returned Kane Douglas was observed training with the Wallabies in Sydney on Monday, doing nothing to dispel speculation and presumption that, deserving or otherwise, he will be shoehorned into the Wallabies squad for the Rugby World Cup.
Rookie look Rory Arnold, joint winner of the Shawn MacKay Award for most outstanding young talent at the Brumby Ball in Canberra on Saturday night, was in the Wallabies squad until recently, but is yet to make his debut. If he’s hasn’t been used before the Bledisloe Tests in a World Cup year, we probably won’t see him in gold until next season.
Another player who could suddenly loom into contention is Sam Carter, who missed the end of the Super Rugby season due to a knee medial ligament injury, but looks set to make his comeback via the NSW Country Eagles in this year’s National Rugby Championship.
Carter told me late last week that his recovery and rehab is well and truly on track.
“It’s going really well. Everything took positively once I got out of the brace and started running,” Carter said. “Now, it’s responding strongly, and I’m getting all the strength back, so hopefully another two weeks and it should be right to go.”
I last saw Carter the day after the Brumbies lost their Super Rugby semi-final to the Hurricanes in Wellington, and though he’d been looked after with a late business-class upgrade for the Wellington-Melbourne leg, for the Melbourne-Canberra leg his height and bulky knee brace were wedged into the same economy row as me.
He got out of the brace only about a fortnight ago, and started his first running drills with the Brumbies medicos a few days later. That led to a second session Friday week ago, and then he ramped things up more last week as the signs became more encouraging.
It’s fingers crossed still, obviously, but there is a chance he could be running in team sessions toward the end of this week.
“It’s just a day-by-day basis, really. If I progress through each training session, then they can tick the box and they can make a decision from there,” he said.
If things do keep progressing as well as they have so far, the opening round of the NRC is a genuine chance.
“Absolutely. The timing around the injury, at the end of Super Rugby was pretty bad, but I’ve done everything in my power to get back as soon as possible, and that opening round match was what I was targeting, if I was going to play.”
NSW Country plays Greater Sydney at Merrylands in Sydney on Saturday, August 22. However, the timing of the Wallabies’ departure for their historic Test with the USA at Chicago’s Soldier Field means that they will quite likely depart during the second NRC round on the last weekend of August.
It means Carter has one shot at stating his Rugby World Cup case.
“It is ‘all in’, yeah. That’s what happens in the World Cup year,” Carter laughed.
Carter’s switch to the Eagles was the only major change when the marquee Wallabies allocations for NRC teams were released last week. Country coach Darren Coleman had told me a few weeks ago he was hopeful of getting the Quirindi product (northern NSW), but joked that it would rely on Carter answering the phone when his father, former Wallabies flanker and current NSW Country Rugby Union President David Carter, called him.
Evidently, that happened.
“They just asked me!” Carter said. “I was asked two weeks before the injury who I wanted to align with, and I just decided that even at that stage if I wasn’t going to play any games, I wanted to do the promotional stuff and be part of what NSW Country represented.
“Obviously Dad’s involved, and I also know [Eagles general manager] Jimmy Grant pretty well, so I wanted to do the best by them, and the way to do that was to help out through the Country Eagles.”
In fairness, Carter didn’t actually get much say in being aligned with the University of Canberra Vikings in 2014, with the Brumbies taking him as one of their contracted players as they were entitled to do. This season, as one of the Spring Tour Wallabies, Carter was able to choose himself.
The Eagles have made a calculated gamble, too, in taking Carter as one of the two marquee Wallabies, along with Wallabies midfielder Matt Toomua. If Carter plays one game and wins a Rugby World Cup call-up, then the Eagles won’t really lose anything, with the marquee Wallabies counted outside the 33-man squad. If he isn’t picked, then Country gets an international lock for the whole NRC.
And though his focus is obviously on getting that ticket to England via the States, Carter said he would love to get back out playing rugby in country NSW, including an Eagles game close to home, in Tamworth, on September 12.
“If the Wallabies doesn’t pan out, it’d be a great opportunity to go up there where it all began, really. Even with the ‘Bush to Bledisloe’ tour we did last year, we could see how much it meant to the people out there, so it’s a great opportunity to get out there with the Eagles.
“I honestly haven’t played in Tamworth since I was 12 years old!”