Rennie keeps ace pair guessing
THERE are no definitive statistics on this but it is highly likely Wallabies coach Dave R en nie will determine whether James O’Connor or Reece Hodge becomes the most versatile player in the history of the game in the Test against Argentina at Parramatta on Saturdayweek.
Bizarrely, both could earn the record in the same Test.
O’Connor and Hodge have each started in five different positions, a feat only Adam Ashley-Cooper has achieved.
No Wallaby has ever filled six different positions in the run-on side, although Rugby Australia’s unofficial historian Matthew Alvarez believes that Queenslander John Cecil “Jack” Steggall may well have been the greatest allrounder in Wallabies history.
Steggall, the grandfather of Zali Steggall – the Winter Olympic bronze medal-winning alpine skier who beat former Prime Minister Tony Abbott for his seat in last year’ s federal election – played only 10 Tests but was constantly on the move, starting at fiveeighth, outside centre, wing and fullback.
In the case of O’Connor, he has been the starting 10 (fiveeighth), 13 (outside centre), 11 (left wing), 14 (right wing) and 15 (fullback) – but never at 12 (inside centre) over the course of his 54 Tests. Hodge, capped 44 times, has started at 10, 11, 12,13 and 14 but has never once been assigned the position perhaps best suited to him, fullback. That’s what comes, presumably, of being a contemporary of Israel Fol au.
So the question remains: Could O’Connor be chosen at 12? Or Hodge at full back?
Neither appears likely, yet there has been so much chopping and changing in the Wallabies’ backline this season – with O’Connor playing at 10 for the first time since the failed experiment against the British and Irish Lions in 2013, Hodge moving thereafter having played five-eighth only once before in a Test and Hunter Pa is a mi deputising at inside centre for the first time in his professional career.
The early speculation surrounding the Wallabies was that either O’Connor or Matt Toomua would play at 10 with the other at 12. And that is precisely how it played out in Bledisloes I and II.