Selecting a team of the Super Rugby tournament from the five Australian state sides is a fool’s errand, unless we list a few caveats. This is not tacit to a Test team, we are not naming the best players in an absolute sense, a player from a poorly performing side can still have had the best season in his position, we do not switch a player from the slot he occupied in the competition, and I acknowledge there are unlucky players. Let’s start with them.
More Rugby Taniela Tupou and James Slipper are likely to be among the first tight forwards named by new Wallaby coach Joe Schmidt, because props take a long time to learn their craft, but they will miss out on this scratch team. Charlie Cale was a revelation of pace and power but did not carry as much as other loose forwards. Liam Wright was at the heart of the Reds’ turnaround, but was narrowly outdone by another candidate.
Charlie Cale of the Brumbies. (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images) It feels wrong in a rugby sense as well as in philosophy to leave Lukhan Salakaia-Loto’s legal brutality and work rate out, but injury cost him minutes just at the wrong time for himself and his Rebels. Len Ikitau is the best Aussie 13 ever left out of Rugby World Cup squad, but now I am going to leave him out again.
At No.9, I had to toss a coin and Jake Gordon is the unlucky soldier, who put his team in so many situations where a kick or bounce could have saved the Waratah season and never hung his head when almost every time, t.
