- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The Wallabies thought they were signing another Marika Koroibete or Lote Tuqiri. Instead, they don’t quite know what to do with the No.6 winger in Australia.
This upcoming tour of Europe with the Wallabies was to be a tour de force for Suliasi Vunivalu to show off all his potent improvements as a rugby winger.
Instead, coach Dave Rennie has made a tough call … there are better wingers around and no room for Vunivalu.
AUSTRALIA NAMES SQUAD FOR NORTHERN TOUR
Rennie has to be admired because he’s made this call on pure form, not on obligation that you have to pick Rugby Australia’s highly-paid import from rugby league.
Australia’s top winger Koroibete isn’t even available for this five-Test tour yet Vunivalu still hasn’t been able to force a spot.
Andrew Kellaway, Jordan Petaia, Tom Wright and rapid improver Mark Nawaqanitawase have been preferred as wingers on this trip. All have a versatility to play two positions that Vunivalu doesn’t have either.
Suliasi Vunivalu poses for a photo before an Australian Wallabies training session on June 21, 2022 in Sunshine Coast, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
The big question is where does this leave Vunivalu for the Rugby World Cup in a year’s time now he’ll have no European rugby experience in the lead-up.
If we are being brutally honest, he’s now at long odds to be part of the squad for France.
He played a sum total of three minutes of Test rugby against England at the SCG when Rennie had him as part of the squad for nine Tests this season.
His lift-off as a starter has been delayed more often than the Artemis 1 moon rocket still to take-off in the US.
Vunivalu is a popular member of both the Wallabies and Queensland Reds squads. All admire his athletic ability, his running, his high-ball catching and his silky touches.
Rennie just doesn’t see those impacts enough across 80 minutes. Vunivalu’s workrate and ability to get involved off his wing just haven’t picked up enough.
The Australia A team’s tour of Japan was to emphatically showcase his matchwinning skills in three games. Instead, it did that for Nawaqanitawase.
Wallabies captain James Slipper joins The Roar Rugby Podcast
The fool’s gold rule is always that converts from the NRL, even with a rugby pedigree like Vunivalu, can all make the jump as quickly as Tuqiri.
In 2003, he went from a NSW Waratahs debut to scoring a try in a Rugby World Cup final for the Wallabies in just 10 months.
People too quickly forget that Koroibete was at sea for much of his debut season in rugby in 2017. When he did find the switch, his transition to world-beater was astonishing. He is now clearly the Wallabies’ top player.
Can Vunivalu find the switch? You hope so.
He was part acrobat when he caught a Bryce Hegarty high ball for a try at the Reds last year. In Osaka last Friday, there was a lovely offload to Seru Uru in the opening minutes. In Tokyo in the opening game of the series, he caught a Ben Donaldson cross-kick, stayed active in the next phase of play and surged over with a spin move.
That’s more like it. You feel like yelling at the screen for Vunivalu to keep getting involved. Alas, they are just moments.
Nawaqanitawase has come from the clouds and really grabbed the open wing spot for the tour. He’s toughened up, says Australia A coach Jason Gilmore. There’s far more substance than when he was trumpeted too early in 2020.
In Tokyo, there was a lovely in-and-away and a ball-dangling dummy to befuddle classy Japanese Test winger Kotaro Matsushima for a quality try.
In Osaka, the game was already lost in the 79th minute when Nawaqanitawase came off his wing, demanded the ball and burst through two defenders where no hole existed. He got a second touch and aided a Dylan Pietsch score.
That’s where Vunivalu lost his tour spot. Coming off his wing to get involved and a second-touch just don’t come as naturally to him as they should.
There’s no hidden messages to this. Vunivalu was just beaten to a spot by a better-performing player.
If Vunivalu wants it enough, there’s a way back but it is up to him and an unstoppable 2023 Super Rugby Pacific campaign. He just needs to find that switch.
Rennie made another big call in the backrow. Langi Gleeson, the youngest on tour at 21, won out over Harry Wilson for a plane seat.
Gleeson was the discovery of the Australia A program. He added another half a season to his education by playing all six games in Fiji and Japan.
His line-bending and busting runs were impossible to ignore when that’s the currency for Test rugby these days.
There’s more finesse to the Wilson game with his offloads and skills close to the tryline. His running game is not about lack of energy or directness. He still doesn’t always show the feet at the line to punch through and can often be the hardest running forward tackled soundly by two defenders.
It’s tough on the 23-year-old Wilson, who was left at home last year to develop his body and game when the Wallabies headed to Europe.
Now, the 12-Test backrower misses the only other chance he had to experience European conditions before the Rugby World Cup in France.
He has so many upsides, you hope he finds that little extra deception to his running in Super Rugby Pacific and convinces Rennie he must be in the World Cup squad.