Pick your Wallabies team for... whenever they play next

15. Hodge - Rebels 14. Banks - Brumbies 13. Kuridrani - Brumbies 12. JOC - Reds 11. Koriebete - Rebels 10. Toomua (interchanging with JOC) - Brumbies 9. White - Soon to be Brumbies 8. Naisarani - Rebels 7. Samu - Brumbies 6. Wilson - Reds 5. Philip - Rebels 4. Roddha - Reds 3. Tupou - Reds 2. Fa'aingaa - Brumbies 1. Sio - Brumbies 16. Uelese - Rebels 17. Slipper - Brumbies 18. AAA - Brumbies (assuming he recovers from injury) 19. LSL - Reds 20. Hooper - Tahs 21. McDermott - Reds 22. Hunt - Tahs 23. Speight - Reds

Agreed Why do people pick Michael Hooper Been there done that & failed. Move on to the new generation. Wright & Samu

Thanks. Can close the comments section now.

Points of contention for me: 1) Banks. The form fullback no doubt and should be in the Wallaby 23. Like a lot of people, the solution of moving him to the wing and playing DHP at 15 looks the logical move. However, and can some authority correct me (Brett Mackay?) but I thought I read somewhere Banks doesn't like the wing, its fullback or nothing. In which case and given the modern game I would play DHP on the wing, Koribete on the other side. 2) Hooker. No one really standing out with Faingaa (injured for the last few games), McInerney, Mafi and Rangi catching the eye. But all have strengths and weaknesses, and all require improvements in parts of their game. Most notably lineout throwing. 3) Back 5 forwards - Good news is heaps of candidates, bad news is there are few standouts/definite selections. I am pleased that we are finally seeing players like Valentini, Wright and Samu string together some matches and show (IMO) reasonably good consistency - all 3 have had standout matches and all 3 have been consistently on the field. 4) Alas some of these highly hyped youngsters aren't emerging as hoped as they struggle with injury, and meeting the sky high and frankly ludicorus expectations. The chief example is Jordan Petaia, who has had two serious setbacks in consecutive years. The other that comes to mind is Jordan Uelese, who is also struggling with staying fit and then producing when he does get on the field.

First and foremost you need a prop that can hold up a scrum in international games. That rules Slipper out. Time to try new talent at LH. Maybe Angus Bell?

Main difficulty for me is choosing a Loosehead prop. Sio was gone last year. Slipper does well in Super rugby but has never reached international standard as a scrummager. He’s a hinge. Might be too early to bring Angus Bell in to the big time but worth a try. Another thought is AAA to LH and Tupou to TH. Second difficulty is fullback. Banks is sometimes brilliant and other times missing in action and I value Hayley-Petty’s allround game. Banks needs to prove himself off bench. Speight has the best stats of the wingers so he chooses himself. It’s time to let go of some great contributors like Kurindrani and stick with the new blood introduced at RWC 2019. So JP at outside centre. We have multiple options at fly-half- none of them brilliant so Toomua for now as he can kick, maybe Harrison off the bench. While Hooper is still a better allround player than Wright, I think it’s time for a new captain to take us to the next work cup. Rodda, or possibly O’Connor with his new maturity?

James, this one is out there but it does quote some medical source stats. https://youtu.be/th5WQdYGo4Q

Not pushing you to James. Just noting that stat as the most crucial (other the ones that help us to make and keep people well).

1: Slipper 2: Fainga 3: Tupou 4: Neville 5: Salakaia-Loto 6: Naisarini 7: Hooper 8: Wilson 9: Powell 10: Toomua 11: Koroibete 12: O’Connor 13: Kuridrani 14: Nawaqanitawase 15: Hodge 16: Fitzpatrick 17: J.P. Smith 18: Alaalatoa 19: Phillip 20: Samu 21: McDermott 22: Lolesio 23: T. Wright

:laughing: Very good.

Banning public gatherings in HK eh jez, I feel a conspiracy theory coming on.

Our household very interested in that Fionn. Will explain why one day.

Limb I wouldn’t have a clue where to find those stats. I’m watching worldometer.

James, the last question is the most crucial arguably. Has the overall mortality rate increased? If so, by how much?

Interesting aspect Jez. I know a HK expat family, with a kid who is at high school in Sydney. He's gone back to HK and has to wear a wrist band to check on location. I assume he is remote learning from home. True about testing percentages, but I find it hard to believe that solely skews the results. I've bought a bit of sporting equipment so my boys can train thriough the next couple of months. Interesting times. I'm saving on tolls and Opel cards...

Why do people pick Nick White Been there done that & failed. Move on to the new generation. Powell & McDemott

I really feel for HJH, he’s bided his time playing 10 minutes off the bench behind Robertson At LHP his first year. Gets to show what he’s capable of there due to Robertson being injured last year. Earns a wallabies cap, albeit so those in front of him would be ready for the RWC. Then has to bulk up for THP this year, which affects his mobility around the park, all because the previous coaching and management didn’t have a succession plan for Kepu leaving. Doesnt seem fair on the kid

James, with such varying testing rates going on around the globe it's pretty hard to extract a lot of meaning from declared cases vs deaths. It's a bit hard to get a hold of numbers that are truly informative but where available one of the clearest things to look at is how many people are hospitalised vs how many ICU beds there are. Taking the UK, they've identified 17,000 cases, we can estimate around 20% of identified cases having serious symptoms that means around 3,400 people hospitalised. The NHS publishes a sit rep report on their site which for January 2020 showed that the UK had 4,123 adult critical care beds of which 3,423 where occupied. As soon as you start looking at the number of beds available and the number of people needing them then you get an indication of why mortality rates are going up. I suspect any nation with higher mortality rates is going to show a correlation to how overloaded their ICU system is. Contrasting the above with HK where we had our first case in early Jan, we started working from home, shut down sport on the 18th of Jan. We've only had four deaths. We've got had 582 confirmed cases, 117 currently hospitalised and 112 discharged. Our number of cases has shot up from about 102 to 582 in the last two weeks. More than half our cases are imported (mostly students returning home from places like the UK) or people from here who travelled and returned over the last month. We are now seeing local infections rising so although many people returned to work at the beginning of March we are back on home isolation again, we've now banned public gatherings of more than four people, schools have been closed since Jan 11. Chatting to a Dr mate, we have about 1,000 ICU beds standing empty - stopping the infections to allow us to keep those beds empty is going to be the key to keeping fatality rates low.

True Pete. If Australia is testing more than other countries, it could make our stats look better. For example, the criteria you need to meet to be tested is tougher in the USA, I'm pretty sure. This results in skewing the stats. Also though, testing more is another sign of a better health system.

Something that should make us all a little happier - some cause for optimism, although obviously will take a while to get up and running. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/28/21198021/coronavirus-test-abbott-fda-covid-19-5-minutes