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Sport Nation
Parker: Wallabies must poach five NRL players
Corey Parker • July 21st, 2025 2:19 pm
For me the Wallabies, with the lead up to that game, looked a team that had not had much preparation.
There was a lack of cohesion, a lack of confidence in certain areas and it appeared that way in the opening 20 minutes when we were well and truly blown off the park.
The Wallabies finished with more possession – 54% - the down side to it is the attacking raids. We had three.
Where I’m going with this is the Wallabies for me, if they want to be fair dinkum – and this goes against everything I think and feel - they need four or five NRL players to finish and play a style of football that will have them competing with the best in the world.
The lack of ability to make metres, to create an attacking raid and come up with individual brilliance or just having class.
Late in that game a kick came to Harry Potter, he couldn’t get there quick enough and he fumbled it.
People like To’o, Coates, Lomax - these guys that score these tries 99 out of100 times. Not only do they do it they do it in the most incredible fashion.
They can create off loads, second phase, I didn’t see any of that really. The Lions middle forwards were playing beautiful football. There is a real inability for the Wallabies to create anything. They didn’t ask questions of the defensive line.
I understand it’s different tactics in rugby, but the Wallabies and Rugby Australia need to go after some of these players and lot of them (like) Joseph Sua'ali'i have grown up playing rugby.
Rugby needs to get them back if they’re going to be fair dinkum on the world stage. Sua'ali'i is not a battering ram; give him an early ball so you’re weapons can do what they need to do. It’s just not good enough.
I still can’t get my head around it, we’ve had 12 years for the biggest game and we come in with one trial game and it looked that way.
Could you imagine if there was a Lomax on one wing and To’o on the other? They’re just different athletes. If the R360 gets up the Wallabies could look … well …
This R360, it’s $25m a franchise and eight have been snapped up. 120 players have verbally agreed and four or five NRL platers have verbally agreed.
If it does get rubber stamped, look out NRL. They’re only playing 12-14 games, they’re getting well paid in US dollars.
