
Three of Australia’s four provincial sides have now faced the British & Irish Lions on home soil, and the Wallabies themselves have played their one and only warm-up match before the First Test in Brisbane a week on Saturday.
After the ACT Brumbies get their turn on Wednesday, all that’s left are the invitational sides: the AU-NZ team this weekend, and the First Nations & Pasifika XV in between the First and Second Tests.
But with as much Lions-relevant rugby now played as there is still to come, how many questions does Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt have answers for? My guess is not many.
Who starts in the front row?
Tighthead Allan Ala’alatoa will be one of the first players picked for Brisbane. Loosehead and hooker remain far less certain, and are no clearer after Sunday’s 21-18 win over Fiji.
Questions over the No.1 jersey will be whether Angus Bell is ready to start a Test, and/or how far James Slipper can go if he’s handed the start. And let’s not even contemplate who’s next in line should either of those two go down in the next fortnight.

Hooker Dave Porecki failed his HIA in Newcastle, and will be racing the clock to get through his return-to-play protocols and have enough training time before the First Test. Like Porecki, Matt Faessler has also had a chequered run of injury this season, and neither have played anywhere near the amount of rugby they’d like heading into such a big series.
Is young Billy Pollard ready to start against the Lions? Like Porecki, Pollard experienced lineout throwing issues in Newcastle, and unfortunately for the young Brumbies rake, it’s been an issue for much of the season.
Whoever the fittest hooker is right now, plenty of set-piece remedial work is needed this week and next.
Does the pack have the right balance?
The question of balance always seems to come up whenever Will Skelton re-enters the Wallabies frame, and right on cue, here we are again. It’s a question no coaches in Australia have to address, because there just aren’t any other scrummagers and maulers with Skelton’s 140kg ballast around.
He’s certainly a guy you can build a pack around, but the question then always turns to the compromises needed to fit him in. And because Australian back-row options don’t feature specimens like Ardie Savea or Pieter-Steph du Toit, the compromise is always the hybrid option you have to insert onto the side of the scrum in order to balance out the comparative mobility you lose with Skelton in the second row.
It’s really nice to have Skelton, but how do you fit him in and retain all the best parts of the Wallabies forwards game to suit the Schmidt plan?
It means that a hybrid lock may need to slot into the blindside, which then impacts back-row impact and dynamism, something the Wallabies game has long been built around. The other option involves putting Rob Valetini on a lineout crash-course.
Unfortunately, it reflects the depth of Australia’s playing pool. La Rochelle has no problems with Skelton in the second row, and there are a dozen French four/six hybrid options around in the Top 14. Australia’s list is significantly shorter.
So the balance question remains. It’s really nice to have Skelton, but how do you fit him in and retain all the best parts of the Wallabies forwards game to suit the Schmidt plan?
Is the back row already set? (and does that address the captaincy?)
Valetini definitely comes into the side for the First Test, though gee, it’d be nice if he could get a game in somewhere. Fraser McReight certainly did enough in Sunday’s win to underline his claims to the openside spot, as if there really was any doubt.
That leaves Harry Wilson. If he doesn’t start at No.8, who possibly usurps him? After a strong first half, Langi Gleeson faded badly against Fiji and may even have hurt his chances of winning a bench spot. Unless Pete Samu has an absolute stormer of a game in Adelaide this weekend for the combined AU-NZ outfit, it’s difficult to see how it won’t be the current Wallabies captain.

The big NSW-born Queensland Reds forward just continues to grow as skipper and it wasn’t any great surprise it was Wilson queuing up for what became the match-winning charge at the Fijian line to secure the nail-biting win.
There was a bit of chatter about Jake Gordon assuming the captaincy at the back-end of Super Rugby, but a combination of Gordon missing the Fiji Test and Wilson’s form in Newcastle has surely put that chat to bed.
Who will steer the ship from fly-half?
Horrible news from the Wallabies on Tuesday, with an injury update seemingly ruling fly-half Noah Lolesio out of the series, confirming that he will “spend a period of time away from the game during his rehabilitation”.
The Japan-bound Brumbies No.10 was stretchered from the field in Newcastle with what Schmidt described post-match as a whiplash injury, and he was cleared and released from hospital on Sunday night.
But follow-up medical advice saw Lolesio readmitted to hospital for surgery on Tuesday, from which he is expected to make a full recovery.

This was Lolesio’s third worrying injury in 2025, and both the previous incidents (concussion in Round 1 of Super Rugby, and a nasty lower back injury only about a month ago) led to periods out of the game. Whatever your opinion on Lolesio as a No.10, he was clearly the player Schmidt had backed to deliver his game plan.
Those plans have a very big ‘what now?’ attached to them.
Tom Lynagh (three Tests) has been similarly injury-afflicted this season and questions remain over his ability to string games together. The form of Ben Donaldson (17 Tests) dropped off towards the end of Super Rugby after an impressive start, like his Western Force team, and he didn’t get a whole lot of opportunity to state his case after replacing Lolesio on Sunday.
Has anyone asked James O’Connor to maybe hold off packing his bags for Leicester?
If there were concerns over Lolesio’s ability to steer the Wallabies around for the First Test, how much does this forced change of personnel change the approach? Does Schmidt have more faith in Tane Edmed than NSW Waratahs? And has anyone asked James O’Connor to maybe hold off packing his bags for Leicester?
What is the right amount of experience and flair in the back three?
Among the criticisms of the Wallabies after the Fiji win was their decision making when it most mattered. Though it certainly wasn’t isolated to the back three, it’s not hard to see that the options taken by players with only a handful of games to their name might be different to players with at least a few seasons under their belt.
The Wallabies back three on Sunday of Max Jorgensen, Harry Potter and Tom Wright had 49 caps to their name, and the full-back accounts for 38 of those.
It’s certainly not the reason they very nearly shelled that game, but it was also very obvious the three of them had not played a lot of rugby together.

Take out even just one of the wingers, and drop say, an Andrew Kellaway or a Marika Koroibete in their place and suddenly there’s a lot more experience of pressure situations and hopefully, of making the right decisions at the right time. Kellaway brings the added benefit of a very good 14-15 combination with Wright, with the two of them have regularly playing as twin full-backs in the last 12 months.
Is experience worth more than X-factor or instinct? Hard to say and impossible to measure. But what is more reliable, especially in a pressure series like what is about to be played over the next month?
Do the Wallabies have a bench to win games in the 84th minute?
We’re not talking ‘bomb squads’ or anything like that, but the selection of bench players is becoming way more important than was envisaged when the term ‘finishers’ was first uttered in a press conference.
Australia certainly have players who can impact a game late in a game with a piece of mastery, or some display of surreal skill.
But do the Wallabies boast a group of players who Schmidt can trust to get them into the right position on the field, and find the right play to win a game? And can that happen after 25 phases without penalty advantage well after the siren?
Ironically, at precisely the time Australian rugby has a role in reducing elapsed total game time, the biggest series played on our shores in the last decade-plus might just need to be won well after time.
Wilson showed himself as the man to get it done in Newcastle on Sunday, and that was in the 79th minute, so maybe we are getting there. Traditionally, frustratingly, Wallabies games decided well beyond the 80 minutes generally haven’t ended well for Australian supporters.
Who could Schmidt depend on to deliver when it’s most needed in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney? Especially Sydney.
Ironically, at precisely the time Australian rugby has a role in reducing elapsed total game time, the biggest series played on our shores in the last decade-plus might just need to be won well after time.