Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has been forced to make changes to his team for this weekend’s second Rugby Championship Test against the Springboks in Perth.
After getting mauled 33-7 by South Africa in Brisbane, Schmidt’s team are also a walking wounded group with winger Filipo Daugunu only playing for 25 minutes after fracturing a fibula, while locks Nick Frost and Jeremy Williams both suffered concussions.
Tongan-born prop Taniela Tupou also had to leave the Wallaby camp to attend the funeral of his father who passed away over the weekend.
This has forced Schmidt to bring in more new faces into an already-inexperienced Wallabies side, calling up locks Sam Carter and Josh Canham and prop Tom Robertson with the Aussie coach stating he was desperate to stick to selecting an unchanged team.
But he says: “We’ve got a lot less caps [than the Springboks], we’ve got a lot less experience and therefore, my belief, if we chop and change too much then it’s very hard to grow the cohesion.”