Here are our key winners and losers from the Wallabies squad announcement for their upcoming end-of-year tour, which begins in Japan and ends in France with pitstops in England, Italy and Ireland along the way.
Winners
Carter Gordon
After a fraught 2025 with injury to fly-halves, the capture of Gordon from the NRL to union has rightly been hailed as a coup. His return apparently wasn’t on the horizon, Reds (and 2026 Wallabies boss) Les Kiss revealing on Monday that the signing was “absolutely rapid, probably (the last) four or five days”. It’s a signing that will seriously boost the image of Rugby Australia. They were an organisation in dire straits when Gordon quit in 2024, another casualty of the calamitous Eddie Jones/Hamish McLennan era, but they are a business now coming back into fashion with Joe Schmidt conjuring some on-pitch miracles and a more robust administration in charge off-field. So coveted is Gordon that the fit-again Ben Donaldson was only deemed good enough for the Australia A squad.
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Aidan Ross
Playing for the All Blacks is an amazing achievement. Except in the case of this prop, it is a feat marked with an asterisk. His only cap under Ian Foster came as a sub in the damaging mid-series defeat to Ireland in Dunedin in July 2022. Ross got a two-part run amounting to about 20 minutes in total but was binned for the decider, Karl Tu’inukuafe earning a recall, that was that for the loosehead’s blink and you missed it All Blacks career. 39 months later, the soon-to-be 30-year-old has now been unveiled as an uncapped Wallabies squad pick after last year’s club switch from the Chiefs to the Reds and is poised to become the fifth player to play for both the Wallabies and the All Blacks. It’s quite the story, especially as he has taken the spot vacated by the legendary James Slipper, who retired from Test rugby on October 4.
Kalani Thomas
With the retired-unretired-retired Nic White soap opera now concluded, it’s time for the Wallabies to start building depth at scrum-half, and the 23-year-old Reds reserve is the immediate beneficiary. His full potential isn’t clear – this is a player who has existed in the shadows at the Reds, where Tate McDermott has bossed the jersey. Just 11 of his 61 Super Rugby appearances have been as a starter, but with McDermott now hamstrung and Reds boss Kiss set to take over the Wallabies next year, the wind is suddenly in Thomas’ sails.
Hunter Paisami
There was a time when the 27-year-old midfielder was a regular Test-level starter for the Wallabies, but last year’s acquisition from rugby league of Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and his flourishing partnership since then with Len Ikitau has squeezed Paisami out of the reckoning. His only look-in so far in 2025 was the deflating Rugby Championship loss to Argentina last month in Sydney, but with Ikitau unavailable for the opening two games of the tour following his club switch to Exeter, Paisami has another window to stake a better claim to a jersey, not only at centre but apparently as out-half cover if there is an emergency.
Losers
Tom Lynagh
It’s been quite the dose of adversity in recent months for the son of the legendary Michael Lynagh. The rookie hit the jackpot with selection as the starting No.10 in all three matches against the British and Irish Lions. He has had a rotten run ever since the concussion suffered when illegally clattered by Dan Sheehan in Sydney, though, and it has now culminated in his tour squad omission. There was just a single appearance in the six-game Championship due to head and hamstring issues, and the Wallabies have now taken a long-term view with the 22-year-old by putting him on a programme to “allow him to recover to full fitness” away from the tour.
Tom Hooper
The lock/blindside has been the rising star of the Wallabies pack in 2025, shrugging off his status as a bit-part player on the fringes of the Schmidt set-up to become an integral part of the rejuvenation that has materialised in recent months. Starting the last seven Tests – the final match against the Lions and then all six Championship fixtures – was no mean feat for the 24-year-old, but his club switch to Exeter has now rendered him unavailable for selection until tour match No.3 in Italy. It’s a downside of World Rugby regulation nine that the international player release window isn’t wide enough to cover all Test matches. The question is, will Hooper’s enforced absence push him back down the pecking order, or does he have enough credit in the bank with Schmidt to be an automatic pick when available again?
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Will Skelton
The La Rochelle giant had been in a club of one in recent times, being the only overseas player Schmidt wanted involved, but that situation has now grown to four with Ikitau and Hooper at Exeter and James O’Connor at Leicester. While the latter three are currently fit, able and ready to be called up mid-tour in November, Skelton has been in the wars ever since the back of last season in France. He did impress in his two outings against the Lions, but looked weary at times in South Africa and lasted just 15 minutes against the All Blacks in Perth due to a head knock. It seems as if he is paying the price of the northern hemisphere club season running into the southern hemisphere Test calendar, and his fitness has paid the price.
Brandon Paenga-Amosa
A year is a long time in Test rugby. It was just last November when the hooker was a Wallaby starter in their tour matches against Scotland and Ireland, having subbed in England and Wales. But the soon-to-be 30-year-old is now surplus to requirements again, having been initially overlooked for the Lions series. The Western Force front-rower got back to play four times off the Championship bench, including the last 17 minutes at Eden Park on September 27, but the Reds’ Josh Nasser was chosen as sub hooker for the Round Six clash with New Zealand in Perth and has now been picked ahead of Paenga-Amosa for the tour.
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