Bad to worse Wallabies hopes nosedive as Tupou all but ruled out

Australia’s hopes of a Twickenham boilover have been dealt another blow, with the Wallabies all but ruling out damaging prop Taniela Tupou.

Confirmation of his withdrawal due to head injury protocols is not expected until Wednesday night at the earliest but the Wallabies have called up Perth-raised London Irish prop Ollie Hoskins as a precaution.

Tupou was concussed in Australia’s 15-13 loss to Scotland on Sunday and did not return to the field after an assessment.

Coach Dave Rennie is likely to give his damaging tight-head all the time possible to obtain a clean bill of health but, with time ticking, Hoskins was needed on the training paddock.

The 28-year-old joined the squad on Tuesday and could be in line for a fairytale Test debut off the bench five years after leaving Australia to forge a career in Europe.

The former Force prop, who is London Irish’s most capped current player after 123 appearances in the UK Premiership, said the call-up was a dream come true.

Taniela Tupou is expected to be ruled out of the game against England.Credit:AP

“It’s pretty wild - it’s hard to put into words how I feel,” he told his club. “It’s surreal - it’s something that I thought was off the table for me when I moved over here and set up my life here. They’ve obviously recently changed the laws - so when I got that phone call last night, it was an incredible moment.

“Obviously nothing is guaranteed in terms of playing time, but just to receive the call-up and be considered is a huge privilege, and confirmation that I’m on the right path and doing the right things.

“I’m just going to lap up the experience and hopefully come back a better man and a better player.”

The Wallabies were also likely to lose starting winger Jordan Petaia after the Queenslander left Murrayfield with a hamstring injury, leaving Rennie down eight players from the match-day line-up responsible for the Wallabies’ five-Test win streak last month.

Nic White believes the Wallabies can bounce back from the Scotland loss.Credit:AP

Despite the drama, halfback Nic White was buoyant in camp, maintaining the Wallabies were not far off against Scotland and could turn things around at Twickenham.

“Everyone’s replaying a few moments in their head and what they’d do differently but if you flip that, the positive is that for everything that went wrong and everything that went against us, we were still two points away from getting a result there in Edinburgh, in front of a packed stadium and away from home,” he said. “It’s not all doom and gloom, but there are areas we need to tidy up.”

The Wallabies attack struggled to gel with new players at five-eighth, inside centre and off the bench, but White said training and time would help this week.

“It was a little bit clunky at times and took us a little while to get into it. There’s certainly an element of new guys coming in and we’ve got to be able to adapt to the way they play, they bring different strengths ... but there’s also an element of the guys need to fit into the way we want to play,” he said.

“It is a bit of a juggling act (at halfback) when you get a few new guys coming in but on the whole ... it’s something we feel we can fix pretty quickly.”

Australia have a poor recent record against England, with the losses piling one on top of the other since Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika took the reins at their respective sides. The Wallabies have not beaten England in seven outings since the 2015 World Cup. The most recent clash ended Australia’s World Cup dream with an emphatic 40-16 scoreline.

White said Rennie’s first Test against England could be a reset for the Wallabies after Jones and Cheika’s shared Randwick history put an intimate spin on a storied rivalry between the nations.

“It will be less personal for sure. As a playing group, I certainly didn’t feel it, but there was a lot in the media between Eddie and Cheik,” he said. “I think it will be a little different this week and a good chance for us to focus on what we want to do and the way we want to play.”

The experienced halfback, who played in England before Cheika jump-started a stalled Test career in 2016, swatted away praise from Jones this week, cheekily labelling the Australian the “king of England”.

“It’s nice for him to give us some praise, Eddie’s the king of mind games so I’m certainly not reading too much into what he says,” White said.

“He’s the type of guy you’d love to sit down, have a beer, and talk rugby with. Hopefully one day I get that chance.

“Our job this week will be a little different to previous games with England. We’ll focus on the things we could have controlled on the weekend just gone, fix those and concentrate on us rather than, in previous times, concentrate on so much of what England are doing.”

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Watch every match of the Wallabies, All Blacks & Springboks Spring Tours on the Home of Rugby, Stan Sport. Continues this weekend featuring Scotland v South Africa (Saturday, 11:50pm AEDT), Ireland v New Zealand (Sunday, 2:05am AEDT) and England v Australia (Sunday, 4:00am AEDT).

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