Another Irish-based Aussie winger is following in the footsteps of Ireland star Mack Hansen, and Dave Rennie has been urged to call him up before it’s too late.
While Hansen went from the fringes at the Brumbies to become an Ireland regular, his club teammate at Connacht, John Porch, could be destined for a similar trajectory.
Hansen scored two tries in the weekend’s United Rugby Championship win over Scarlets but Connacht DOR coach Andy Friend – the former Brumbies and Australian 7s head coach – was raving about the performance of Porch – who dealt expertly with defusing high kicks and was excellent in attack.
Friend was also excited about his kicking game and defensive ability.
“How he is not in that Wallabies set-up is amazing to me,” said Friend, who worked with Porch while in charge of Australia’s Sevens team.
“He is an incredible talent. We know we can put him at full-back, he can play on the wing, his high ball stuff is excellent and he has really worked on his kicking game.
John Porch. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
“He is elusive with the ball, brave in defence, all things you want from a bloke. He’s delivering that. He’s been outstanding for us.”
Porch is in his fourth season with Connacht. He was previously with Northern Suburbs and Sydney Rays in the XV man game and was a member of the Australian Sevens squads at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Australia A recently played in Japan with two wingers with a Sevens pedigree in Dylan Pietsch and Mark Nawaqanitawase with the latter winning a call-up for the northern tour.
Friend said Porch could be destined for an Ireland jersey if not wanted by the Wallabies.
“He’d have to have this season and one more, then he would become eligible to play for Ireland,” said Friend.
“He loves it here, you can see that in the way he plays his rugby. He and his wife Ella have settled here now and the way he’s playing his footy, he’s enjoying himself.”
Gregan expects Dempsey impact
George Gregan says he has no issues with former wallaby Jack Dempsey changing allegiance to Scotland and expects him to make an impact for his new nation.
Dempsey last played for the Wallabies in 2019 and under fresh regulations now qualifies for Scotland due to his time out of the international arena and his family ties. His grandmother is Scottish.
While Dempsey has been struggling with injuries, he is still in the frame to face the Wallabies on Sunday morning AEDT.
“I was around the Wallabies in 2019 and he was part of that squad,” Gregan told The Scotsman newspaper.
“He’s an explosive player, a great athlete, and brings a lot of physicality to any team he plays in. There will be players in that Wallabies squad who will be aware of what he can bring to a match in terms of his skillset.”
Dempsey has excelled at Glasgow Warriors since joining from the Waratahs in 2021 and is eager to make the Scotland team for the World Cup.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Asked about the validity of the rule change and its spirit – many fans believe it should only be used to allow players from tier 1 nations to move back to countries of their heritage – Gregan said: “It’s there, isn’t it? If he’s changed circumstances whereby he wants to live the rest of his life, or a good chunk of his life, in Scotland and represent them, then I get that.
“I don’t have any real qualms about that.
“I think we’ve seen it in the past. I played against Shane Howarth [who was representing New Zealand] in 1994 but by 1999 he was playing for Wales, so it’s not as though it hasn’t been done before.”
All Blacks suffer another blow
Leicester Fainga’anuku is the latest withdrawal from the All Blacks squad for the Test against Japan on Saturday citing family reasons.
Assistant coach Scott McLeod said it was unclear if he would rejoin the squad before the All Blacks head to Europe for Tests against Scotland, Wales, and England, with a decision to be made soon on a possible replacement.
The team is already missing the Barrett brothers who stayed in New Zealand when the squad left due to the death of their grandmother, Mary Barrett.
Sam Whitelock and Will Jordan both have “inner ear issues” and will miss the Japan Test.
“We’ve got an outstanding group that’s here and all very keen,” McLeod said. “We’ve just come off the training field. Everyone’s really keen, so we’re just working with that energy.”
Brodie Retallick also brushed off the list of absentees.
“The word disruption has not been talked about,” he said. “It’s not a disruption in our eyes.
“If we were to lose three players on a Friday afternoon before heading into Saturday Test I guess we would call it a disruption.”
Retallick said the All Blacks were expecting a fast tempo from their hosts in Tokyo. A virtual Test strength Japan A side recently beat Australia A 52-48 in a crazy tour match that involved 15 tries.
“We will back our fitness to stay with them, if not take the tempo earlier,” said Retallick.
“A lot of our focus has gone on our set-piece. If we nail our set-piece, and our carry and clean, we’ll be able to retain the ball, and that’s when the opportunities happen.”
England ready to show Wallaroos new tricks
England forward Rosie Galligan has warned the Wallaroos that the World Cup favourites have yet to show their full range of skills in the pool matches.
Australia have the toughest ask of the quarterfinals on Sunday when they face a team that has won their last 28 games and is fresh off the 75-0 defeat of South Africa.
Galligan, who scored a hat-trick of tries, told the BBC: “We definitely have things in the locker.
“It is just choosing when and where we will use them. It is a marathon, not a sprint.
“We don’t want to showcase everything we have yet but in the quarter-finals, we know we are going to have to do something a bit different. What it is, I am not going to tell you.”
Galligan will be teammates with Australian trio Emily Chancellor, Bella McKenzie and Kaitlan Leaney at Harlequins after the tournament.
“I have been sussing them out!” said Galligan.
“I was really excited to hear we were going to be playing them rather than your usual teams that we play throughout the year. I know that they are going to offer something different.”
England face disruption
Owen Farrell is one of three withdrawals from the England squad for their training camp after sustaining a concussion.
The former captain and star flyhalf took a knee to the head during Saracens’ win over Exeter on Saturday.
Jonny May (elbow) and Henry Arundell (foot) also pulled out after suffering injuries at the weekend.
As a result, Sale wing Tom Roebuck has been called up to the England squad for the first time while Newcastle wing Adam Radwan and Exeter centre Henry Slade also make a return to Eddie Jones’ squad.
England play Argentina on 6 November, followed by fixtures against Japan, New Zealand and South Africa.
Last week, it was announced Courtney Lawes would not join the camp as he continues to recover from concussion suffered a month ago.
Dupont to lead French against Australia
World player of the year Antoine Dupont will captain France in the three November Tests, including one against the Wallabies, the French Rugby Federation announced on Tuesday AEDT.
Dupont, 25, led the side to this year’s Six Nations Grand Slam with regular skipper Charles Ollivon out injured.
Ollivon was then given the role by head coach Fabien Galthie for July’s two Test wins over Japan with Dupont rested for the tour.
Earlier in the day, uncapped tight-head Reda Wardi was ruled out of next month’s games after being shown a red card for a high tackle on Dupont in La Rochelle’s loss at Toulouse on Sunday.
Wardi has been replaced by Lyon’s Jerome Rey, who has yet to win a cap.
(With AFP)
Intotouch
Roar Rookie
Tadhg Beirne had to leave Leinster to play with the Scarlets in Wales before people saw how excellent he is. JJ Hanrahan is shining now in Wales (also Irish, from Munster). Sometimes international coaches can’t see how good a player is because there are so many excellent, established players above them in a team. In other words Porch not being spotted as a great player in Australia shows the teams there are healthy and already populated with talented players. This is a good sign not a bad one. Porch is unlikely to be called up to olay for Ireland in the near future because of the phenomenal depth in his position right now and in the coming years. Several players would have to be ahead of him. Rob Baloucoune has yet to play for Ireland for example. I hope that he does get to play international rugby. But does Australia need him?
LuckyPhil
Roar Rookie
We don't need a winger to take up one of the Giteau spots. Tight five or no. 10.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
Leinster is one of the top teams in Europe because they have rugby schools who get players to be a good enough standard to join the academy, a team like Connacht do not have the same system so are able to bring through less people. South Africa have Craven week where all the best school players come and are picked up by the unions, Each of England’s best clubs have rugby schools working as sub academies. Without the playing numbers in school you don’t get the same players into the professional system regardless of how good that professional system is. In NH the best athletes will always be picked up for soccer first and rugby second because of how much they can earn, do the best athletes in Fiji and NZ pick rugby first or second, this is important because if all your fast evasive runners are not picking the sport you are limited to what wingers you get and you can’t make the 10th best player as good as the first no matter how much you train him.
Paulo
Roar Rookie
I’m not sure what rugby playing schools is really related to in the context of this conversion? My point was the size of the rugby population of a country doesn’t necessarily determine their available talent. It’s how that potential talent is handled that determines the quality of stock a country has. You referenced how much top level rugby occurs in the NH - that’s exactly the point. This is a main driver of their current quality. Not population size.
Tooly
Roar Rookie
I’ve never seen him . Let him decide . He could be Kolbi and Rennie wouldn’t pick him .
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
There is a difference between a country's population and rugby population of that country. One only need look at the attendances at Celtic and Rangers each week compared to Glasgow warriors. There are 246 secondary schools who play rugby in Ireland, there are about 900 schools. Some of the 246 would be girl schools. Scotland has about 350 secondary schools with about 175 play in a festival or fixture during the year (This includes 7s). In NZ about 300 out of 375 schools play rugby. These numbers are dropping in NZ but still well above the Celts. I agree numbers don't tell the story but Fiji get the best athletes out of their pool while Scotland lose most of their to other Sports.
Paulo
Roar Rookie
I’m not sure where your figures are from, but they don’t seem to be 100% accurate. And the assumption that a larger player pool means a higher chance of success isn’t correct either. It’s what you do with the players you have that counts. If you are taking player numbers and population size, Ireland is very much on par with NZ. You are 100% correct when you point out… “its called training 10 months of the year in a professional environment with 50 other professionals.” It’s not necessarily the population size, but where, how often, and who, the Irish players play with.
Guess
Roar Rookie
What it shows is what happened in football is happening in rugby. It's not Aru's fault. It's fault of globalisation and filthy os investors who ruin it for everyone. No matter how aru organise it they can't compete with os big money nor can nz but they have better depth so it's not as noticeable yet
Guess
Roar Rookie
Who are those mysterious players?
Guess
Roar Rookie
Wallabies aren’t short on wingers. Can 7s players be good forwards or half backs?
Reds Harry
Roar Rookie
Gosh the league world cup is fantastic eh.
Reds Harry
Roar Rookie
Good luck to Porch. I think what this trend of Australian reared players shining OS shows us, yet again, that Australian rugby's structure is not right and we are not making the best use of our resources. I would merely note that Porch, Hanson, Dempsey and the bloke playing outside centre for the Poms from Sydney Uni all played in the NRC.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
Players like Reece were more poached than any NH player as the NH teams dont bring over kids to get them into their system. Players like porch, Dempsey, Hansen, JGP etc are highered to be professional players first and then turn out to be good enough to become internationals. When Uini was picked up by La Rochelle I doubt anyone was think about him being an international they just hoped he made the club team.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
Most of the numbers are rubbish as it is the unions trying to include everyone they can. But ultimately rugby in terms of playing numbers (Not fans) is really small in Ireland compared to its population and even smaller in Scotland. The 3 Celts have between 200 - 250 clubs from what I can find, but Scotland and Wales have alot more small ones as Ireland it's an urban sport mainly while the other two have alot of rural support. In comparison there are about 2k GAA clubs in Ireland and every school with male students has a team.
Crusher_13
Roar Rookie
I don’t have an issue with players making a decision to play for one country over another, I don’t think it is ethical to select someone you know won’t get many starts. Someone like Henry Speight only ever came to Australia after being spotted in the NPC by Christian Leali'ifano and stated he wanted to be a Wallaby as the Brumbies gave him the opportunity to play rugby in Super Rugby. Fiji and New Zealand both didn’t rate him so he made a choice. Henry was very much under utilised by the Wallabies, he deserved to play more tests than he did. Is Porch going to play in Australia? Can we afford an international selection on 2 wingers and a 12? The answers no…
Mungbean74
Roar Rookie
Maybe Fiji, there has been a few better examples in the past. A past Fijian Reds winger about 10 years or so ago known as “The big bad Wolf”. Sorry I can’t think of his name… Having more talent in other international teams excites me. You only have to look at the League WC to realize that we need International rugby to keep getting stronger, as League is struggling on the big stage.
Atlas
Roar Rookie
Agree on the twelve months, we’d potentially have had endless nation-swapping in the year prior to a RWC. The Fiji figures, the country has total population 911,000 in 2022. The Fiji Rugby union states “registered member base of 30,000” and across its 300+ islands “many village teams, which are too isolated, or too little in number to form a union. Almost every village has a team although those not attached to a union may play only occasional matches” so I think realistically making any comparison with eg New Zealand’s player numbers in more formalised clubs could be misleading, as is counting 1 in 9 of the entire Fijian population from baby to elderly, both genders, as ‘rugby players’. I don’t believe any country provides an accurate breakdown of age by registration, it would be interesting to see how many are in the 18-35 fifteens level rather than including the over 40s golden oldies, club sevens, under 80kg teams, even touch rugby (NZ requirement for NZ Rugby Player Accident Insurance Scheme) and I presume other countries’ registrations similarly skewed.) Statistics. Don’t believe 93.3% of them!
Colin Fenwick
Roar Rookie
Thanks for the timeline and quote, Atlas. This ties in with my recollection of NZR being very supportive of easing the rules for eligibility. The misinformation about NZ 'poaching' players from the island nations is unfortunately based on ignorance.
Crusher_13
Roar Rookie
Who else would pick him though?
Bentnuc
Roar Pro
Porch has been excellent for connacht. Another ozzie 7s player excelling in 15s. That is where RA should put their money - sevens. It develops excellent decision makers in attack and defence. Exactly what the Wallabies have been crying out for. Just look at Pietsch. He will no doubt be in a wallaby Jersey soon enough