Former Wallabies captain Michael Hooper will have a six-day training camp in Darwin to convince John Manenti he should be taken to the Paris Olympics.
Hooper, as well as NRL-bound Mark Nawaqanitawase and Brumbies flyer Corey Toole, are part of an 18-person group that flew to Darwin on Sunday, The Roar can reveal.
Maurice Longbottom, the star Australian halfback and attacking ace, also travelled with the group but will spend significant time training on his own as he builds back from another niggly injury.
Western Force utility back Max Burey is also with the group.
Michael Hooper has a training camp in Darwin to prove he’s ready to be selected for the Olympics. Photo: World Rugby
Manenti will hope the camp proves to be more effective than Eddie Jones’ Wallabies’ fly-in, fly-out camp ahead of last year’s World Cup.
It’s believed Manenti will internally announce who will join him in Paris following the camp, before the squad is officially unveiled on July 4.
Australia’s men’s side has been pooled alongside World Series champions Argentina, Samoa and Kenya.
But Manenti won’t be displeased by his pool, with host-nation France facing the challenging prospect of being grouped alongside double gold-medallists Fiji and the USA.
New Zealand also has a difficult pool, with the ever-improving Ireland and South Africa in the group.
Manenti’s heat camp comes directly off the back of a series of matches in Fiji.
Although Australia went winless in the four matches, Manenti said the short tour was a valuable experience for the group and gave Hooper and Nawaqanitawase some precious time to push for selection.
“On the scoreboard, they beat us in all four games,” Manenti said.
“But we were doing proper subs and they were doing rolling ones. They treated it as a training session, where they had guys running on and off.
“We would have got a lot more out of it than they did because every time you put fatigue in them, they’d sub them off. They had a couple of big boys, they brought a guy back from France, and he’d just whack guys and then pull him off.
“It was a good exercise. It exposed us on a couple of areas. I didn’t have all my top guys [Nick Malouf and Henry Hutchison], but it tested a lot of them. But I got the chance to see a few guys.”
After missing the vast majority of the World Series, including the final tournament in Madrid, Manenti said Hooper made a strong impression and brought some much-needed physicality against Fiji.
“It was clearly his best performance since coming over from sevens and he’s doing everything he can to put himself up for selection,” Manenti said.
“The rest from Madrid was spot on. It’s been really good for him.
“It was good to have him there because it was really physical and they were offside all the time. The referees, they gave us nothing.
“They [Fiji] were going after us and the crowd was going wild. It was good to have him there because he flattened a couple and got a few pilfers.
“If it was a World Series [tournament], they would have had five yellow cards and a couple of reds; there lifting tackles and late tackles, but it was unreal.
“We had a huddle at the end and their coach [former captain and Olympic star Osea Kolinisau] apologised for some of their tackling, which might not have been fully legitimate, and he said, ‘We pray for you.’”
Mark Nawaqanitawase featured at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and is striving to make the Olympics. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Manenti also said Nawaqanitawase, who was excluded from Joe Schmidt’s maiden 38-man Wallabies squad after signing with the Sydney Roosters, started to show why he was taken to Birmingham for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“Marky did well, he got better with time and games and fatigue,” Manenti said.
“But certainly by the end he was starting to figure out he could beat a few guys.
“We played him predominantly on the wing but we also played him in the forwards. He had to learn that you can’t offload all the time and he got better with his understanding of when to pass, offload and carry.”
Should Nawaqanitawase miss out on Olympic selection, it’s likely that he will be granted an early release to the Sydney Roosters.
The NRL club has sought to lure him across to Moore Park early, with Trent Robinson keen to shore up his options and depth ahead of this year’s finals series.
Joining the Wallabies flyer in Darwin is Toole, the former World Series rookie of the year, who is expected to be a certain selection for the Olympics given his extreme pace and X-factor.
“We’ve got 18 training with us,” Manenti said.
“I’ve got a couple of guys, young James McGregor is coming away and a halfback, and he’ll be another body without Moz training much. I don’t want to flog Corey and Mark in the first week too much.”
Meanwhile, Tim Walsh’s preparations have been dealt a blow following Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea’s knee injury.
Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea will miss the Paris Olympics. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
The powerful sevens star, who has been a regular in Walsh’s side for years, was on the comeback trail from injury after missing the second half of the World Series tournament.
Walsh’s sevens team, who won gold in Rio in 2016, are expected to challenge for the gold medal after going toe-for-toe with New Zealand for the majority of the past season.
After falling just short of their trans-Tasman rivals in the regular season, Walsh’s side sealed a spectacular finish in Madrid to take out the tournament.
After struggling in Tokyo, Australia is favourites to top Group B where they are pooled alongside Ireland, Great Britain and South Africa.
