LONG READ A tale of two Australian 10s – and why their team’s fortunes are tied to them

Two very good Australian fly-halves caught the eye on the weekend, though to be fair to both of them, this certainly wasn’t the first time they’ve made anyone take notice.

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Though they finished with different results that mean their respective teams will play different length seasons, they both showed why their teams need to pin their futures to these two players.

Jack Bowen’s NSW Waratahs went down to the ACT Brumbies and that result, plus the Crusaders and Queensland Reds also recording wins, meant the ‘Tahs season will come to an end this Saturday against the Western Force. That match in Perth will still have plenty of interest, with the winner finishing the Super Rugby Pacific regular season in seventh place.

Carter Gordon’s Reds scraped home over Moana Pasifika in Auckland, allowing Moana back into the contest after running up a sizeable lead before finding a set-piece winner in the 79^th minute to save some potential blushes for a finals-bound team in the penultimate round of the season.

That result locked down the top six, with the Brumbies and Reds confirmed as the two Australian qualifiers for the three-week finals series.

But the performances of these two 10s gave an interesting glimpse into the future.

Bowen the guy Waratahs have to build a team around

Believe it or not, Bowen is now in his fourth year in the NSW system, playing 16 games across those four seasons, having made his debut as an 18-year-old against the Blues in 2023. Friday in Sydney was only his fourth start at fly-half in those 16 games, which generally speaking have come later in the season.

But Friday was also his second consecutive start at 10, something he’d not done before. It was clear fairly early in the game against the Brumbies that another full week on the training track was of significant benefit to his and the Waratahs’ game.

They remain a team that infuriatingly cannot convert opportunities – they were held up three times alone and butchered several other chances – but the big difference since Bowen has been starting is the number of opportunities they’re creating in the first place.

Bowen plays flatter, with more runners providing options inside and outside of him. The Waratahs present an attacking picture that asks more questions of defences.

It was a point of difference coach Dan McKellar highlighted post-match. He acknowledged it was frustrating they couldn’t finish those opportunities, but at least they created them. You don’t have to go back very many weeks to find Waratahs sides not creating anything.

Bowen wasn’t responsible for all of that creation against the Brumbies, but there has definitely been more direction and intention about their attack since he took the reins two weeks ago.

He plays flatter, with more runners providing options inside and outside of him. The Waratahs present an attacking picture that asks more questions of defences. The Brumbies were excellent in defence in Sydney, to hold NSW out as much as they did, but they needed to be.

Bowen’s pass is more pointed, his passing action more deliberate and extended in the follow-through, almost certainly a routine he’s in the progress of building. But it’s putting his runners more in the face of defenders, and his vision to pick where the space is or is going to be is a major factor in more opportunities being created. He came up with the crucial held-up tackle on Kadin Pritchard early on as well.

“For a young player, how he articulates, we’ve given him a fair amount of responsibility around driving messaging, giving him that confidence to do that,” McKellar said post-match.

“A player like Jack Bowen, where’s he going to be when he’s played 50 games? I sat and listened to him address the group during the week and I was so impressed. And that’s off the back of a handful (of games), and it’s always come at the back end of a year over the last couple of years.

“Unfortunately, he had a disrupted pre-season, but you could see the growth in him at Shute Shield level and he’s earned an opportunity over the last couple of weeks. When those players have got a number of games and plenty of rugby on board, they’re going to be better players for it, definitely.”

Hearing McKellar’s words made me cast the mind back to the 2019-2020 pre-season. After the usual post-Rugby World Cup exodus, the Brumbies lost a host of players, Rory Arnold and David Pocock among them, but specifically, Christian Leali’ifano.

The Brumbies made the call to back their academy program, pitting uncapped young fly-halves Noah Lolesio and Bayley Kuenzle in a summer head-to-head going into 2020, and with Reesjan Pasitoa signed straight out of school in Brisbane and waiting in the wings.

It’s curious that Bowen remains uncontracted for 2027.  Surely NSW aren’t going to let yet another talented young fly-half slip through their system and start again?

Through that pre-season, then-Brumbies coach McKellar seemed to change his mind weekly as to which young 10 was in front, and by the time the trials came, simply allowed them both to start a game and see how the cards fell. Lolesio got the nod for Round One in the end and started his pro career exceptionally well, making his Test debut later that year. Kuenzle never really got a chance to compete, and after two seasons of trying, headed to the Western Force.

At the same time, McKellar was trying to build more game time into young scrum-half Ryan Lonergan. By the time McKellar departed the ACT to join the Wallabies full-time, Lonergan and Lolesio were established as the Brumbies’ half-back pairing.

The same opportunity exists for McKellar now with Bowen and scrum-half Teddy Wilson. Fortunately, the two of them have been playing rugby together since they were kids, so the combination is already strong.

So it’s curious that Bowen remains uncontracted for 2027.  Surely NSW aren’t going to let yet another talented young fly-half slip through their system and start again?

Wilson and Bowen as a combination is something the Waratahs can build a team around. The future is already inside their building, already leading the team on the training field.

Get those aforementioned 50 games into Bowen, and maybe the Waratahs might finally have found a successor to Bernard Foley after however many attempts it’s been.

Gordon back – and with an extra dimension to his game

Like Bowen and the Waratahs, the Queensland Reds just look better when Carter Gordon wears No.10. And that’s not a sleight on Harry McLaughlin-Phillips or even Tom Lynagh when he’s fit. Gordon just plays differently to them, and whether you want to call it X-factor or whatever, he just adds a different element to the Reds’ shape in attack.

Maybe it’s his size that allows him to be that strong physical option he sometimes needs to be; maybe it’s that he sees opportunities that other 10s just don’t see; maybe it’s that he possesses the best left-to-right pass in Australia, if not a lot further than that.

But importantly, in the Reds’ tighter-than-it-needed-to-be win over Moana Pasifika on Saturday, Gordon restored a welcome skill-set to his game: he took his first kicks at goal for 2026.

Earlier in the year, Gordon wasn’t even doing a lot of kicking out of hand, never mind for goal, and this was all understood to be a management thing while he built up strength and confidence following a string of different leg injuries over the past six to eight months.

But now he is kicking again, it presents a potential insight into the looming thinking of Les Kiss, Wallabies coach-elect. A fit and firing – and kicking – Carter Gordon potentially weakens the case for Ben Donaldson, and very possibly strengthens the case for Reds scrum-half Tate McDermott at the same time.

Joe Schmidt almost certainly had an eye on Gordon anyway, but his preference for McDermott as a finisher last season, and the need for a goal-kicker, was theoretically strengthening the case for Lonergan to start for Australia in July. Gordon kicking again could very easily change thinking around the selection table, with far-reaching impact across several teams.

Quite where Jake Gordon – who Schmidt preferred whenever fit last season – would then sit in the scrum-half pecking order would suddenly be anyone’s guess. And not just for the Wallabies, but for New South Wales next season as well.