Wallabies boosted by return of playmaker ahead of Italy clash

Ben Donaldson feels he’s on track to face Italy with the injured Wallabies playmaker aiming to make a Test return in Perth.

Donaldson and fellow flyhalf Carter Gordon both missed Australia’s Nations Championship clash with France due to calf injuries, the pair watching on in Brisbane as Australia suffered a second-half collapse to fall 42-26.

But the Western Force star appears to have made a speedy recovery and after resuming training with the squad, is hopeful of lining up in front of home fans at HBF Park on Saturday.

“I trained today, I’ll train tomorrow and if I get through training, then all is good,” Donaldson said on Monday.

“I ran Saturday morning and did some skills as well, and it felt good, pulled up well, so train tomorrow as per normal and then hopefully good to go.”

With Gordon starting, Donaldson came off the bench in the opening Test in Sydney against Ireland, which the Wallabies lost in heart-breaking fashion 33-31.

“If we had bigger calves, maybe we wouldn’t get injured. We’ve both got pretty skinny little calves,” Donaldson joked.

“We’ve got a great coaching staff and great S&C (strength and conditioning) so we look after ourselves, we do all the right things and sometimes injuries happen.

“There’s nothing more we could do, or the staff could do, if sometimes you just get unlucky with an injury.”

Debutant Declan Meredith took over the Wallabies No.10 jersey against France with Donaldson praising the Canberra playmaker’s efforts against the Six Nations champions.

Meredith became Australia’s seventh flyhalf in the past 17 Tests, mostly due to injury.

“As a 10, you understand how big an ask it is to come in against a French team, who are a pretty powerful team and they’ve done so well in the north for a long time now, so I thought he did a great job,” Donaldson said.

“He controlled the game very well, and you saw at halftime how he set the boys up in the lead at halftime.

“He’s a confident fella, he had a great year with the Brumbies this year and moving forward, he’s going to take a lot of experience and growth out of that game. It was good to see him do well out there.”

The loss against France was the Wallabies’ sixth straight and ninth in 10 Tests, with the only victory coming against Japan.

The defeat dropped coach Joe Schmidt’s winning percentage to 36.66, with Italy his final game in charge.

Schmidt needs a win to edge Dave Rennie (38.2 per cent) and avoid finishing with the worst win-loss ratio among Wallabies coaches.

Les Kiss, who was coaching the Queensland Reds this Super Rugby Pacific season, will take over from Schmidt next month.