{"id":331333,"date":"2025-08-09T19:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331333\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T19:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:48:14","slug":"joe-schmidt-reveals-toll-of-lions-tour-on-wallabies-big-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331333\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Schmidt reveals toll of Lions tour on Wallabies big guns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Australia head coach Joe Schmidt has given a mixed injury update on his Wallabies big guns a week on from the British &amp; Irish <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/lions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lions<\/a> series and a week before the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/the-rugby-championship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rugby Championship<\/a> opener against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa<\/a> in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt says key forwards <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/rob-valetini\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rob Valetini<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/will-skelton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Will Skelton<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/taniela-tupou\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Taniela Tupou<\/a> are expected to be available for the seismic clash, but there\u2019s not so good news elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>The trio have all been carrying injuries in the wake of Australia\u2019s three-Test series win over the British and Irish Lions. Tupou is managing a toe problem after an influential display in the third Test in Sydney, while Valetini missed the first and third Tests with a calf issue.<\/p>\n<p>Skelton sat out the opener with a similar injury before returning to make an impact in the final two matches.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re definitely all in contention for Ellis Park,\u201d Schmidt told the Sydney Morning Herald before the squad\u2019s departure on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously Will played 60 minutes [in the third Test], Nela [Tupou] played 60-odd in Sydney. It feels like a long time ago; it wasn\u2019t even a week ago. So they\u2019re fine and Bobby [Valetini] did a really good run yesterday, so our ambition is that he\u2019ll train fully with us this week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Australia also face the Springboks in Pretoria the following Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Schmidt said fly-half <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/tom-lynagh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tom Lynagh<\/a> and prop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/allan-alaalatoa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Allan Alaalatoa<\/a> remain longer-term injury concerns. Lynagh is undergoing return-to-play protocols after concussion, while Alaalatoa is rehabbing a shoulder problem.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to see how the next two weeks go for both of them,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cAllan is recovering pretty well so far, and we\u2019re hoping that a conservative approach allows him to come back and play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll also be really conservative with Tom. He\u2019s a young player \u2013 you\u2019ve seen the size of him versus the size of some of the guys firing into him \u2013 and we\u2019ve just got to make sure we look after them as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia head coach Joe Schmidt has given a mixed injury update on his Wallabies big guns a week&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-331333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115000541487617443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}