James O'Connor eyes shock Wallabies return
Former Wallabies utility back James O’Connor could be in line for a shock re-call into the Australian national set-up just three months ahead of the World Cup in Japan.
According to a report from The Australian, Rugby Australia is considering putting in an offer for the 28-year-old to return to Super Rugby at the latter end of the 2020 campaign and beyond.
It is believed that while head coach Michael Cheika has not spoken to O’Connor since their casual chat during the Wallabies’ end-of-year tour in 2017, new director of rugby Scott Johnson has been in contact with the 44-test playmaker and is impressed at how he has turned his playing career and personal life around.
Currently plying his trade for Premiership club Sale, O’Connor has been embroiled in many an off-field incident over the course of his 13-year professional career.
In 2013, he was released from his contract with Rugby Australia, then known as the Australian Rugby Union, after he was removed from Perth airport for a drunken incident, while more recently, he was arrested in Paris alongside former All Blacks star Ali Williams on suspicion of trying to buy cocaine in February 2017.
However, O’Connor appears to have turned his life around, having turned to meditation and, following a training camp in Iceland last year, he has spoken out about his mental health and his ambitions on representing the Wallabies at the World Cup once again.
“I now know who I was but more importantly, I now see who I must become,” he wrote on Instagram last September.
“It is time for me to share my truth. I have a deep desire to play for the Wallabies again. I have learnt from my mistakes and I am now ready. Ready to bleed green and gold. Ready to bleed for my brothers. Ready to bleed for the people.
“I will be back playing in October and I will have my eye firmly on the World Cup. I will not let myself or anyone down again. Time to shine!”
Having not played internationally since the Wallabies’ 14-13 victory over Argentina in Perth in September 2013, a return to Australia could reignite O’Connor’s stagnant test career.
Currently in Queensland after spending time in Sydney last week as part of his Premiership off-season, O’Connor has just one season remaining on his three-year deal with the Sharks in England.
That would mean his contract would run out with the Manchester-based club in May 2020, which opens up the possibility of him signing with a Super Rugby club for the remainder of next year’s season between May and July.
If he were to sign with an Australian club for the latter stages of next year’s competition and the 2021 campaign, then he would become available for this year’s World Cup, despite not meeting the 60-test threshold required for overseas-based players who haven’t committed themselves to returning to Super Rugby.
Rebels pivot Matt Toomua, formerly of the Leicester Tigers, and returning Exeter Chiefs halfback Nic White have secured similar deals to make themselves eligible for national selection later this year.
O’Connor was last seen in Australian rugby in 2015, when he signed with the Queensland Reds, but after failing to make Cheika’s World Cup squad that year, he returned to Europe, where he had previously played for London Irish, and turned out for Top 14 side Toulon.
Following the Parisian drug scandal more than two years ago, he was released from the French club and joined Sale ahead of the 2017-18 season.
As the second-youngest person ever to play for the Wallabies after debuting as an 18-year-old against Italy in Padova in November 2008, O’Connor’s addition to the Wallabies would add depth not only to the national side, but also to Australia’s flailing stocks at Super Rugby level.
Able to play at first-five, in the midfield and in the outside backs, O’Connor would add plenty of versatility and experience to the squad.
Furthermore, his return to Super Rugby would help offset the departures of many Australian stars, including David Pocock, Quade Cooper, Bernard Foley, Will Genia, Samu Kerevi, Christian Leali’ifano, Nick Phipps and Sekope Kepu, all of whom will be playing overseas following the World Cup.
With the Rebels, Reds, Waratahs and Brumbies all losing established players, the presence of O’Connor could be a welcome one for any of those franchises.
O’Connor’s preferred option would be to return to Brisbane and have a second stint at the Reds, according to The Australian.
However, whether head coach Brad Thorn, who has enforced a zero-tolerance policy on controversial figures such as former squad members Cooper and Karmichael Hunt, would want someone such as O’Connor, who has a chequered past of his own, in his squad is yet to be determined.
In other news:
Comments on RugbyPass
Christie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
44 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
5 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
44 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
44 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to commentsBut here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.
44 Go to commentsIt could be coincidental or prescient that the All Blacks most dominant period under Steve Hansen was when the Crusaders had their least successful period under Todd Blackadder and then the positions reversed when Razor took over the Crusaders.
44 Go to commentsDefinitely sound read everybodyexpects immediate results these days, I don't think any team would travel well at all having lost three of the most important game changers in the game,compiled with the massive injury list they are now carrying, good to see a different more in depth perspective of a coaches history.
3 Go to commentsSinckler is a really big loss for English rugby.
2 Go to comments