Six of the best: the new talent given a chance to stake Wallabies claim

E ddie Jones takes the first squad of a new Wallabies era into camp on the Gold Coast this week. The 33 players he has selected are being rewarded while those left out are being challenged to nurse the hurt and channel it into onfield improvement. The 33 players selected “have delivered on work-rate, effort and intent,” said Jones.

This camp will be no picnic. Jones is a hard taskmaster and sent a warning to every national team wannabe. “Competitive doesn’t cut it,” he said. “We will build a winner’s mindset – and we will win games. That will come from confidence and belief [and] through effort and sacrifice.”

This is not a World Cup squad but a first step toward both the 2023 and 2027 tournaments. “We have the talent in Australia but not the team,” Jones is fond of saying. To find that team, Jones has thrown down the gauntlet to a host of young talent.

With the Wallabies fly-half spot firmly up for grabs, the flaxen-haired cult hero has staked his claim for the No 10 jersey with a scintillating start to the Super Rugby season for Melbourne Rebels with his fast hands, big kicks, hard-charges and crazy-brave energy.

“I love his competitiveness,” said Jones of the 21-year-old Sunshine Coast kid whose younger brother Mason is also a Rebel. “He’s always in the fight and never beaten. He’s got that feel [for] when to flatten up and when to be a little bit deeper, which is a bit of a lost art.”

Jones desperately needs a spark-plug playmaker. Quade Cooper, James O’Connor and Bernard Foley are old and injury-prone and 17-Test experiment Noah Lolesio wasn’t invited to camp. It leaves livewire Gordon, 21, to fight it out with two-Test Waratah Ben Donaldson.

The Wollongong hooker was a full-time PE teacher and part-time rugby