BRISBANE (Reuters) - Australia coach Joe Schmidt feels the absence of powerful prop Taniela Tupou for Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash against South Africa at Brisbane could be turned into a positive as he looks to expand the Wallabies’ player base.
Tupou left the Australia squad after the death of his father this week and it is not clear when he will return.
The 28-year-old Tupou was expected to be key in the scrum battle against the world champions Springboks as both teams begin their campaign in the southern hemisphere championship.
“Taniela is Taniela. He’s massively powerful,” Schmidt told a press conference on Thursday.
“At the same time we’ve got to be able to build depth. One of the things we tried to do through July was to try to grow that base,” he said of the two test wins over Wales and victory against Georgia.
“We’re in a very different stage of our development as compared to the Springboks and that’s always a risk. We’ve got about half as many caps and a quarter of those belong to (replacement prop) James Slipper.
“From that perspective, we’re still going to keep trying to build and if we do lose someone, we’ve got to be not overly reliant on individual players,” the coach added.
The new Wallaby boss has stuck with Noah Lolesio at flyhalf despite his failure to impress in the two wins over Wales. It was expected he might be replaced by either Ben Donaldson or Tom Lynagh, who was picked for the bench.
OPPORTUNITY
“Noah’s had the most time in the saddle for us through training and through those first two Welsh Tests so he’s got that opportunity,” Schmidt told reporters.
“We lost Tom for maybe a week and a half with a hamstring injury, he’s back to 100% but he had to get through this week’s training so there was a little bit of uncertainty there.
“Ben Donaldson is working really hard on his game and we’re trying to help him make sure that some of the things that he’s actually really good at get delivered consistently,” Schmidt explained.
Carlo Tizzano will make his test debut after being named at openside flanker.
“He’s such a good young man and we're really excited about watching him get underway in 48 hours time.
“His energy is relatively positive, more than abrasive but he fights for everything and that's what first caught our eye,” the coach added.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
