Wallabies great Michael Hooper has likely missed the chance to represent Australia at a third Rugby World Cup, with the veteran No. 7 one of several shock omissions in a 33-man squad from coach Eddie Jones that also sees Will Skelton become the team's fifth captain of 2023.
Jones on Thursday night unveiled his touring party for the tournament in France, omitting Hooper and veteran fly-half Quade Cooper, who up until last week was considered a certain selection.
Cooper's omission means Jones has entrusted the Wallabies' playmaking responsibilities to 22-year-old Carter Gordon, largely alone, with only utility Ben Donaldson offering cover at fly-half otherwise.
Skelton's ascension to the captaincy, with Tate McDermott named his deputy, has come from left field. The towering second-rower is however considered one of the few automatic selections in Jones' first-choice XV, and now not only has the chance to stamp his authority on the game's global showpiece for the first time -- he made just one appearance in 2015 -- but also lead his country at the same time.
A dominant figure in European rugby for the past seven years, Skelton is a four-time Champions Cup winner with La Rochelle and Saracens. Still, he was not among Jones' original seven-man leadership group and will be the first Giteau Law player to captain the Wallabies when he eventually does lead them out in France.
While Hooper and Cooper were the big omissions, the inclusion of uncapped 18-year-old Max Jorgensen, who this time last year was preparing to sit his Higher School Certificate, caps a stunning rise for a player who was also in the sights of multiple NRL clubs.
After returning to Australia as the replacement for Dave Rennie, who was sensationally sacked by Rugby Australia in January, Jones spoke of a "smash and grab mission" to build a squad capable of winning the World Cup in just a nine-month timeframe.
But after a winless start to his second coming as Wallabies coach through four Tests, Jones has instead set in motion a plan for the 2027 World Cup, which will be played on home soil, by selecting 16 players who are 25 years of age or younger.
The 35-year-old Cooper and 31-year-old Hooper, who is recovering from a calf injury that proved more troublesome than first thought, do not fit that brief.
"It's a young squad, it's an exciting squad and it will be a successful squad. We are making good progress," Jones said via media release. "Our challenge is to continue to improve. To get a little bit better every day in everything we do on and off the field. As I've said since I took over, in Australian rugby we have the talent, but we don't yet have the team. That's still the case. But we are getting there and I'm backing that we will surprise a few people.
"Rugby World Cup is a tournament, and tournament rugby is different to competition rugby. Look at the Women's Football World Cup. Favourites get beaten. Upsets happen. It's all part of the challenge. All the teams start from the same place. We all get the same opportunity. The team that improves the most is generally the team that will win it and that's the task we have set ourselves. We have been improving and we will continue to improve.
"I've backed the young blokes because they earned it. Simple as that. I haven't handed it to them. They grabbed it. It's exciting for me to go to work each day with these guys who are just busting to improve, to learn and to get better. They want to succeed, and they will succeed, and that excitement is rubbing off on everyone. We're in a good place."
Jorgensen made his Super Rugby debut for the Waratahs in Round 1 this year, scoring a double in a stunning performance that confirmed his standing as a player of the future. He was then included in Jones' squad for a training camp on the Gold Coast in April, when he told Stan Sport's Tim Horan he was ready for the demands of Test rugby as early as 2023.
However, concerns around Jorgensen's durability and his ability to withstand the greater physicality from schoolboy rugby to Super Rugby were realised when he suffered a knee injury against the Crusaders in late May. His provincial campaign was ended there and then, and so too it was thought any chance that he could figure in Jones' World Cup squad.
But with Tom Wright failing to nail a spot in the outside backs during the Rugby Championship, there was always the chance Jones could add another winger to his squad and Jorgensen now finds himself as the lucky beneficiary.
Jorgensen isn't the only uncapped player in the Wallabies' World Cup squad either, with Blake Schoupp and Western Force's Issak Fines-Leleiwasa also included. Schoupp was always considered to be in the mix after the Wallabies suffered multiple injuries in the front-row; but Fines-Leleiwasa has come from nowhere, with the Brumbies' Ryan Lonergan having been the preferred third-choice scrum-half behind Tate McDermott and Nic White during the Rugby Championship.
Joining Schoupp in the front-row are Angus Bell, James Slipper, Pone Fa'amausili, Zane Nonggorr and Taniela Tupou, while Dave Porecki, Jordan Uelese and Matt Faessler, who made his Test debut in Dunedin at the weekend, are the hookers.
There were no surprises among the locks, with Will Skelton, Nick Frost, Richie Arnold and Matt Philip all named, while Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, Rob Leota, Langi Gleeson and Rob Valetini make up the back-row options.
In the midfield, Jones has opted for Samu Kerevi, Jordan Petaia, Lalakai Foketi and Izaia Perese, while Andrew Kellaway, Marika Koroibete, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Suliasi Vunivalu round out the outside backs alongside Jorgensen. Donaldson and Rebels back-rower Josh Kemeny have been included as "utility" players.
That means there was no place for Waratahs back-rower Jed Holloway nor the Brumbies' Len Ikitau, who like Hooper had been sidelined for the past few weeks through injury. With existing injury concerns around Kerevi, Uelese, Porecki and powerhouse prop Tupou, it appears Jones wasn't prepared to leave himself any shorter on personnel by selecting the recovering Hooper and Ikitau.
Talk of Hooper's omission had been circulating throughout the past few days, after the 31-year-old former Wallabies captain had missed each of Australia's past three Tests because of a calf injury.
Hooper was injured in the build-up to the Wallabies' Test with Argentina in July, as first reported by ESPN, and while he was originally only expected to miss one Bledisloe Cup Test, his failure to recover in time to face the All Blacks in Dunedin last weekend appeared telling.
It is understood Hooper's recovery had been tracking on schedule, only for the most-capped Wallabies captain of all time to then suffer a setback. The fact that Hooper did not even travel to New Zealand as part of the wider squad was viewed as a key sign he could miss the plane to France.
Any fears Jones will have had about overlooking Hooper, whom he named as co-captain alongside James Slipper in June, will have also been allayed by Fraser McReight's stellar effort against the All Blacks in the 23-20 defeat on the weekend.
The rise of Brumbies young gun Tom Hooper, who has the ability to play on both sides of the back-row, only further increased the pressure on the Waratahs great, who on Monday night won an incredible 8th Matt Burke Cup as NSW's best player.
But just as his Super Rugby career came to an unflattering end in a quarterfinal walloping at the hands of the Blues in Auckland, Hooper's Test career now looks to have had a line drawn under it on 125 caps. There is a chance that he could yet be a late call-up during the tournament if either McReight or Tom Hooper were injured, but for all intents and purposes it appears as though Michael Hooper's last act in a Wallabies jersey came in Pretoria in a 43-12 loss to the Springboks last month.
Donaldson's inclusion will meanwhile divide opinion given his indifferent Super Rugby form, but the fact that he was maintained in the Wallabies squad throughout the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup suggested Jones was always likely to take him to France.
With Bernard Foley on the outer this year, Donaldson offers utility cover as both a third fly-half and at fullback, where he started the Waratahs' quarterfinal against the Blues.
Jones had meanwhile made no secret of his interest in Suliasi Vunivalu, and so the code-hopper's inclusion came as less of a shock on Thursday night. Vunivalu was named among Jones' his first training squad in April, the coach keen to enforce the "cattle prod" to help the Reds winger unleash his potential.
Vunivalu then made his first run-on start on the right wing against the Springboks in Pretoria, but failed to make any meaningful impact on the game before he was yellow-carded for a deliberate knockdown and eventually replaced.
The Wallabies will complete their domestic preparations for the World Cup with a camp in Darwin and will also visit Arnhem Land before returning to Sydney for their departure to Paris. They have one final warm-up game against France on Aug. 25, before they open their World Cup campaign against Georgia back at Stade de France on Sept. 9.
AUSTRALIA'S RUGBY WORLD CUP SQUAD:
Forwards: Angus Bell, Pone Fa'amausili, Zane Nonggorr, Blake Schoupp, James Slipper, Taniela Tupou, Matt Faessler, David Porecki, Jordan Uelese, Richie Arnold, Nick Frost, Matt Philip, Will Skelton (c), Langi Gleeson, Tom Hooper, Rob Leota, Fraser McReight, Rob Valetini
Backs: Issak Fines-Leleiwasa, Tate McDermott (vc), Nic White, Carter Gordon, Lalakai Foketi, Samu Kerevi, Izaia Perese, Jordan Petaia, Max Jorgensen, Andrew Kellaway, Marika Koroibete, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Suliasi Vunivalu
Utility: Ben Donaldson, Josh Kemeny