The Waratahs won't have any wriggle room with their top players after Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle said she expected the Wallabies resting agreement to be honoured rain, hail or shine over the final two round of Super Rugby.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Castle was pressed on the controversial policy at that announcement Bankwest Stadium would play host to the Sydney Sevens for the next four years, saying the club vs country debate was "never easy" but had to be worked through.
Citing a game-wide agreement between Michael Cheika and his Super Rugby counterparts late last year, Castle said she expected NSW to follow through on their commitment, under which Michael Hooper, Rob Simmons, Sekope Kepu, Bernard Foley and Kurtley Beale still need to sit out one of the next two games.
"These things are never easy and straight forward. We've got Super Rugby teams that are trying to win Super Rugby and you've got the Wallabies who are trying to win the World Cup," she said.
"We recognise that it is challenging, but we all sat down - Michael Cheika and the Super Rugby coaches and their high performance teams - well before the beginning of the year and agreed on something that we all believed was workable.
"We would expect that that will be delivered off the back of the fact that we had an agreement from before Super Rugby started."
Gibson's dilemma is hypothetical at this stage and will only bite if his team upset the Brumbies at Bankwest on Saturday night and their higher-ranked rivals also stumble.
NSW attack coach Chris Whitaker reaffirmed the likelihood they would field their best side this weekend, for a match that also honours the late Wallaby, Brumby and Waratah, Dan Vickerman.
Notwithstanding Cheika's preparedness to negotiate on some players' availability, it will leave Gibson with little option but to leave a host of his big names at home when they fly to New Zealand for a final-round clash with the Highlanders - no matter what is on the line.
"We haven't spoken about selection yet but I dare say that's going to be the case," Whitaker said.
If this season's derby clashes are anything to go by, Saturday's game will be another brutal match up between two teams fielding a high number of Test-capped players.
The Waratahs took their strongest line up to Canberra back in round five, including an all-star back line of Kurtley Beale at fullback, Israel Folau on the wing, Karmichael Hunt and Adam Ashley-Cooper in the centres and Bernard Foley at No.10. Only winger Curtis Rona was rested.
They went down 19-13 in one of the early examples of their achilles heel, an inability to follow up one win with another.
"Last time down there we just turned too much ball over," Whitaker said.
"They attacked our breakdown pretty hard, had probably two or three turnovers there, and then just poor execution, dropped balls.
"Our game's hopefully come a long way since then."
Having suspended the resting policy to save their season, they haven't been able to kick the win-loss-win-loss habit, but have won five of their seven conference battles and are still a slim chance to sneak a top eight spot.
"There's some special characters in the team. It's a strong team, they've been together a long time and they fight for each other. [The Rebels] game at the weekend, in the last five or 10 minutes we gave [them] three or four chances to win that game and defensively the boys just kept turning up, kept getting off the ground and kept making the tackles.
"It's a good position to be in. We'd like to be in a better position on the table, but [it is] not to be and we'll keep fighting."
- SMH/The Age
