Latest news with #JosephAukusoSuaalii
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
O'Connor left out of Australia's Lions warm-up squad
The last of James O'Connor's 64 caps for Australia came in 2022 [Getty Images] Veteran fly-half James O'Connor looks set to miss out on facing the British and Irish Lions this summer after being left out of Australia's squad to face Fiji in their only warm-up match. The 34-year-old, who has made 64 appearances for the Wallabies, had been tipped to return to Joe Schmidt's squad for the first time in three years. Advertisement But number 10s Ben Donaldson, Tom Lynagh and Noah Lolesio have been picked over Crusaders' O'Connor. "Selection is always tight and there'll be players who are excited and those that are disappointed," Schmidt said. "There was a lot of healthy, robust discussion and we think we've selected a group that will work hard and connect well as a squad." New South Wales Waratahs back Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has been named in the 36-man squad after recovering from a fractured jaw. The 21-year-old had an operation on his jaw last month, sparking fears he would miss at least one of the Tests against the Lions. Advertisement Team-mate David Porecki has been recalled to the squad for the first time since captaining Australia at the 2023 World Cup, when the Wallabies failed to emerge from the group stage for the first time. La Rochelle lock Will Skelton is the only overseas-based player included in the Wallabies' squad. Australia squad Backs: Filipo Daugunu, Ben Donaldson, Jake Gordon, Len Ikitau, Max Jorgensen, Andrew Kellaway, Noah Lolesio, Tom Lynagh, Tate McDermott, Hunter Paisami, Dylan Pietsch, Harry Potter, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Corey Toole, Nic White, Tom Wright. Forwards: Allan Alaalatoa, Angus Bell, Nick Champion De Crespigny, Matt Faessler, Nick Frost, Langi Gleeson, Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, Zane Nonggorr, Billy Pollard, David Porecki, Tom Robertson , Will Skelton, James Slipper, Darcy Swain, Carlo Tizzano, Taniela Tupou, Rob Valetini, Jeremy Williams, Harry Wilson.
BBC News
an hour ago
- Sport
- BBC News
O'Connor left out of Australia's Lions warm-up squad
Veteran fly-half James O'Connor looks set to miss out on facing the British and Irish Lions this summer after being left out of Australia's squad to face Fiji in their only warm-up 34-year-old, who has made 64 appearances for the Wallabies, had been tipped to return to Joe Schmidt's squad for the first time in three years. But number 10s Ben Donaldson, Tom Lynagh and Noah Lolesio have been picked over Crusaders' O'Connor. "Selection is always tight and there'll be players who are excited and those that are disappointed," Schmidt said."There was a lot of healthy, robust discussion and we think we've selected a group that will work hard and connect well as a squad."New South Wales Waratahs back Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has been named in the 36-man squad after recovering from a fractured 21-year-old had an operation on his jaw last month, sparking fears he would miss at least one of the Tests against the Lions. Team-mate David Porecki has been recalled to the squad for the first time since captaining Australia at the 2023 World Cup, when the Wallabies failed to emerge from the group stage for the first Rochelle lock Will Skelton is the only overseas-based player included in the Wallabies' squad. Australia squad Backs: Filipo Daugunu, Ben Donaldson, Jake Gordon, Len Ikitau, Max Jorgensen, Andrew Kellaway, Noah Lolesio, Tom Lynagh, Tate McDermott, Hunter Paisami, Dylan Pietsch, Harry Potter, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Corey Toole, Nic White, Tom Allan Alaalatoa, Angus Bell, Nick Champion De Crespigny, Matt Faessler, Nick Frost, Langi Gleeson, Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, Zane Nonggorr, Billy Pollard, David Porecki, Tom Robertson , Will Skelton, James Slipper, Darcy Swain, Carlo Tizzano, Taniela Tupou, Rob Valetini, Jeremy Williams, Harry Wilson.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
‘It's going to be pretty monumental': Harry Potter eyes Wallabies spot for Lions series
No, Harry Potter – the Australian rugby union winger – hasn't read the books. And the 27-year-old is unlikely to get to them anytime soon, given his focus on securing a precious place in the Wallabies' team for the coming tour of the British and Irish Lions. 'It's a massive, once-in-every-12-years event,' he says in the days before the first Wallabies squad of the year is named on Thursday. 'It's going to be pretty monumental.' Advertisement Related: The Breakdown | Trash-talk and rough sleeping: following the 2001 Lions' tour of Australia The Western Force player has perhaps the best name in Australian sport. But as cute as his moniker may be to non-rugby-following millennials, Potter cares more about how he is viewed by a man of more advanced years: Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt. The 59-year-old Schmidt has more eclectic literary tastes but it appears, as far as rugby goes, he likes Potter. Under Schmidt, the winger won his two Wallabies caps on the side's European tour at the end of 2024. Yet the competition among Australian outside backs hoping to play the Lions is intense. Even big money rugby league recruit Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, recovering from a broken jaw, is not guaranteed to start in a Wallabies team seeking to re-establish itself as a world power. Potter says he is nervous ahead of Thursday's announcement, when Schmidt will name a squad for the Test against Fiji, the precursor to the prestigious Lions series. 'A lot rides on getting selected in this next squad,' Potter says. 'It would be great to be in any Wallabies squad but I do feel like this one is an opportunity to beat what should be really the best team in the world.' Advertisement The grand tradition of the British & Irish Lions, where four formidable rugby nations combine to challenge the three southern hemisphere powers every four years, is not lost on Potter, who was born in the UK and moved to Melbourne as an 11-year-old. Despite his roots, in the Victorian capital he was quickly won over by his new nation. 'Having an Australian accent certainly makes you feel even more Aussie, even if the rest of my family have English accents,' he says. But in one area he didn't sway. After growing up in Bristol playing union, he found his new home did not have the same passion for rugby. On ovals in Melbourne's south-west he tried – but quickly gave up – Australian rules football. 'I was not so good at kicking and doing a bit too much tackling around the legs,' he says. So a young Potter would stick to his earlier sporting passion, even if that made the slim prospect of a professional sport career even slimmer. He admits progressing through Victorian pathways had left him far behind his peers by the time he turned up at Sydney University rugby union training as a first year environmental science student in was a bit random really – it was just a uni that I had applied for, and thought I'd go and check it out.' Potter thrived in one of Australian rugby's storied communities. From playing fly-half at high school, he shifted wider in the backline over a period he grew into and developed what is now a powerful 185cm frame. While he couldn't make firsts in colts (under 19s) in his first year, by his third season he was helping the students' senior first grade to the Shute Shield. Advertisement Related: Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii injury not as bad as feared as Wallabies get boost for Lions tour After injuries and Covid slowed his progress in Australian professional rugby, Potter took a chance in England with powerhouse Leicester in 2020. Within three years he was on the fringes of the England squad under Eddie Jones when he took up an opportunity to join the Western Force, partly motivated by the chance to represent the Wallabies. Although ankle surgery 14 months ago forced him to miss much of one Super Rugby season, impressive performances on the Force's October tour of South Africa secured a Wallabies call up. 'I was thinking they've got a lot of guys that they can now choose from in the outside backs and do they want to take a risk on another one? But I certainly felt like I did what I could, and put my best foot forward, and I'm grateful that they rolled the dice and took me.' Since then, Potter has elevated his game, and was named in the Super Rugby Pacific team of the year this season, even as the Force struggled to win matches. He finished near the top of the competition's leaderboards for clean breaks, metres gained and defenders beaten. 'Irrespective of stats, you always have your things that you're desperate to work on and feel like you could have gone better and wanting to improve,' he says. Advertisement Potter is now well-established within the Force setup, which includes a handful of former Sydney Uni teammates, even if they tease him about his choice of degree. 'A lot of them take that as an opportunity to think I'm some sort of left wing political activist. But I just studied the degree,' Potter says lightheartedly. 'Nick [Champion de Crespigny] likes to call me Greta Thunberg, but I'm trying to stamp that out of him because I don't think I'm quite there yet.' Though his contract is up at the end of this season, he is currently enjoying living in Western Australia with housemates, including Force hooker Tom Horton – another former Sydney University and Leicester player – and competing over who makes the best coffee. The group has also recently forced him to sit through all eight Harry Potter movies. 'It was an experience learning about all these things that I've been told in various jokes,' he says. While his parents once gave him the choice of changing his name, he has long ago become comfortable with it. 'It's a pretty funny name really, it's amazing how people will make jokes. I think, 'God, that joke's been made about 30 times', as I'm sure you hear with Snape jokes as well.' But as his status in Australian sport rises, he is happy to remain patient with those only now coming across the words on his birth certificate, written not long after the first book was released. After all, Potter says, it could be worse. 'I think Harry Potter is probably a better name than Ron Weasley.'
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
‘It's going to be pretty monumental': Harry Potter eyes Wallabies spot for Lions series
No, Harry Potter – the Australian rugby union winger – hasn't read the books. And the 27-year-old is unlikely to get to them anytime soon, given his focus on securing a precious place in the Wallabies' team for the coming tour of the British and Irish Lions. 'It's a massive, once-in-every-12-years event,' he says in the days before the first Wallabies squad of the year is named on Thursday. 'It's going to be pretty monumental.' The Western Force player has perhaps the best name in Australian sport. But as cute as his moniker may be to non-rugby-following millennials, Potter cares more about how he is viewed by a man of more advanced years: Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt. The 59-year-old Schmidt has more eclectic literary tastes but it appears, as far as rugby goes, he likes Potter. Under Schmidt, the winger won his two Wallabies caps on the side's European tour at the end of 2024. Yet the competition among Australian outside backs hoping to play the Lions is intense. Even big money rugby league recruit Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, recovering from a broken jaw, is not guaranteed to start in a Wallabies team seeking to re-establish itself as a world power. Potter says he is nervous ahead of Thursday's announcement, when Schmidt will name a squad for the Test against Fiji, the precursor to the prestigious Lions series. 'A lot rides on getting selected in this next squad,' Potter says. 'It would be great to be in any Wallabies squad but I do feel like this one is an opportunity to beat what should be really the best team in the world.' The grand tradition of the British & Irish Lions, where four formidable rugby nations combine to challenge the three southern hemisphere powers every four years, is not lost on Potter, who was born in the UK and moved to Melbourne as an 11-year-old. Despite his roots, in the Victorian capital he was quickly won over by his new nation. 'Having an Australian accent certainly makes you feel even more Aussie, even if the rest of my family have English accents,' he says. But in one area he didn't sway. After growing up in Bristol playing union, he found his new home did not have the same passion for rugby. On ovals in Melbourne's south-west he tried – but quickly gave up – Australian rules football. 'I was not so good at kicking and doing a bit too much tackling around the legs,' he says. So a young Potter would stick to his earlier sporting passion, even if that made the slim prospect of a professional sport career even slimmer. He admits progressing through Victorian pathways had left him far behind his peers by the time he turned up at Sydney University rugby union training as a first year environmental science student in was a bit random really – it was just a uni that I had applied for, and thought I'd go and check it out.' Potter thrived in one of Australian rugby's storied communities. From playing fly-half at high school, he shifted wider in the backline over a period he grew into and developed what is now a powerful 185cm frame. While he couldn't make firsts in colts (under 19s) in his first year, by his third season he was helping the students' senior first grade to the Shute Shield. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion After injuries and Covid slowed his progress in Australian professional rugby, Potter took a chance in England with powerhouse Leicester in 2020. Within three years he was on the fringes of the England squad under Eddie Jones when he took up an opportunity to join the Western Force, partly motivated by the chance to represent the Wallabies. Although ankle surgery 14 months ago forced him to miss much of one Super Rugby season, impressive performances on the Force's October tour of South Africa secured a Wallabies call up. 'I was thinking they've got a lot of guys that they can now choose from in the outside backs and do they want to take a risk on another one? But I certainly felt like I did what I could, and put my best foot forward, and I'm grateful that they rolled the dice and took me.' Since then, Potter has elevated his game, and was named in the Super Rugby Pacific team of the year this season, even as the Force struggled to win matches. He finished near the top of the competition's leaderboards for clean breaks, metres gained and defenders beaten. 'Irrespective of stats, you always have your things that you're desperate to work on and feel like you could have gone better and wanting to improve,' he says. Potter is now well-established within the Force setup, which includes a handful of former Sydney Uni teammates, even if they tease him about his choice of degree. 'A lot of them take that as an opportunity to think I'm some sort of left wing political activist. But I just studied the degree,' Potter says lightheartedly. 'Nick [Champion de Crespigny] likes to call me Greta Thunberg, but I'm trying to stamp that out of him because I don't think I'm quite there yet.' Though his contract is up at the end of this season, he is currently enjoying living in Western Australia with housemates, including Force hooker Tom Horton – another former Sydney University and Leicester player – and competing over who makes the best coffee. The group has also recently forced him to sit through all eight Harry Potter movies. 'It was an experience learning about all these things that I've been told in various jokes,' he says. While his parents once gave him the choice of changing his name, he has long ago become comfortable with it. 'It's a pretty funny name really, it's amazing how people will make jokes. I think, 'God, that joke's been made about 30 times', as I'm sure you hear with Snape jokes as well.' But as his status in Australian sport rises, he is happy to remain patient with those only now coming across the words on his birth certificate, written not long after the first book was released. After all, Potter says, it could be worse. 'I think Harry Potter is probably a better name than Ron Weasley.'
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii injury not as bad as feared as Wallabies get boost for Lions tour
Wallabies fans can breathe easier after NSW Waratahs coach Dan McKellar allayed fears of Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii missing any Tests against the touring British & Irish Lions. Despite Suaalii requiring surgery for a broken jaw, McKellar on Thursday said the injury was of a lower scale and the 21-year-old was already back in the gym working out to maintain his conditioning. It was initially feared Suaalii might be sidelined for an extended period after taking an accidental knee from teammate Andrew Kellaway in the Waratahs' 28-21 Super Rugby Pacific derby loss to Queensland last Friday night. 'It's just a four-week injury,' McKellar said on the eve of the eighth-placed Tahs' latest must-win clash with the Crusaders in Sydney. 'So he can crack on. Get done what he needs to get done and he'll be back training pretty quickly. 'To be honest, it's nothing major. It's just a setback, obviously disappointing from a Waratahs perspective, but all going well – and most of the time it does – he's not going to be missing any Test matches. 'It's disappointing for Joseph to miss a few games for us at the back end of the year but, in terms of what's ahead, everyone can take a deep breath and relax a bit.' Australia's first Test against the Lions is in Brisbane on 19 July, giving the code-hopping game-breaker nine weeks to recover and return to peak fitness for the blockbuster series. After going home with his parents in a 'groggy' state last Friday night, Suaalii only learnt on Monday following X-rays he had suffered a fracture. 'His jaw presented OK [initially] but obviously with a little bit of discomfort over the coming days,' McKellar said. 'More investigation was done and our medical staff got onto it and we are where we are. 'He's in the gym right now, so he's doing what he needs to get done. Like, he's talking and doing everything normally so he's good as gold. We play a sport that is collision based and incredibly physical and, yeah, he got a whack, a little bit of friendly fire and will miss a couple of games.' McKellar revealed Suaalii's parents had reached out to Reds centre Filipo Daugunu for so sportingly rushing to his rival's support and alerting the Queensland medical team after the incident at Allianz Stadium. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion Suaalii was treated for several minutes before being taken from the field on a medicab and in a neck brace. 'Enormous respect and gratitude towards Filipo Daugunu there,' McKellar said. 'I spoke to Joseph's parents on Saturday and they were keen to get in touch with him and it just says a lot about him. 'We go hammer and tong [as fierce interstate rivals] and it's a physical contest for 80 minutes, and certainly it was physical on Friday night, but at the end of the day we're all human beings and no one wants to see anyone injured. 'And the boys certainly appreciate that and no one more so than Joseph and his family.'
