Toomua looms as the Wallabies starting flyhalf for the three-Test series against France next month after incumbent Quade Cooper injured his shoulder on Saturday night.

Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie will name his squad on Thursday and Cooper is set to miss the next four weeks, almost ruling him out of any involvement in the French series.

Toomua is the most likely candidate to take the playmaking reins in Cooper’s absence, but the Brumbies No.10 did not want Test duties to become a distraction as the Brumbies aim to keep their Super Rugby title dreams on track.

The Brumbies lost to the Free State Cheetahs 27-21 in Bloemfontein on Sunday morning (AEST).

“I’ve got to get [in the Wallabies] squad first, looking forward can have its negatives and I don’t even know if Quade is injured,” Toomua said.

“I don’t know what Ewen’s thinking or anything. I honestly don’t want to concern myself with anything like that because we lost [to the Cheetahs] and if I’m not worrying [about the Brumbies] I’m not doing the team justice.

“It can be a distraction if you let it be. We know when the [Wallabies] squad is named, to say we don’t think about it is lying. But we have to move on, the team is picked on Super Rugby form so we have to concentrate on that.”

The Brumbies struggled to get any momentum in their match against the Cheetahs and their second-half comeback was shot down when Johan Goosen nailed a 54-metre drop goal in the dying minutes.

Their attention now turns to the Pretoria Bulls and trying to salvage crucial competition points from their two-game South African tour.

The Wallabies announcement could cause a mid-week distraction as McKenzie unveils his squad.

Hooker Stephen Moore is in contention for the vacant captaincy duties while a host of Brumbies are trying to hold on to their Test spots.

But the Brumbies’ immediate focus is on rectifying the errors which cost them any chance of victory against the Cheetahs.

The Brumbies had plenty of chances to make the Cheetahs pay, but they failed to deliver try-scoring punches.

“When you’re playing away from home, you need little things to go your way and that didn’t happen for us,” said Brumbies director of rugby Laurie Fisher.

“We gave away a silly penalty reversal … our dominant scrum didn’t really get rewarded as it should, they got some get-outs on their scrum.

“We probably didn’t show the patience and control we needed to.”

Brumbies kickers Christian Lealiifano (2) and Nic White (1) missed three penalty attempts from difficult chances, but they had an impact on the end result.

“Christian and Whitey are both world-class kickers so from time to time they’re going to have nights where it doesn’t all go perfectly for them, but the character of those guys means they’ll bounce back,” Brumbies captain Ben Mowen said.

The Brumbies will return to their Johannesburg base before travelling to Pretoria later in the week to play the Bulls.

They still hold a slender lead but the NSW Waratahs and Western Force are waiting to strike at the next slip-up.

“It certainly was a missed chance and we let ourselves down in not getting the result, we just have to shift our focus to Loftus next week,” Fisher said.

“We’ll hurt out of that, but we get another chance next week.”