'Most of Australian rugby is trying to forget': Brumbies star's clean slate

The ACT Brumbies fullback would be lying if he said he wasn't upset about losing his Wallabies jersey and missing the World Cup which marked the low point of the Eddie Jones experiment.

Wright went from the Wallabies' starting XV to missing a 34-man squad for the Bledisloe Cup entirely and then - after returning to Wests in the John I Dent Cup - watched Australia's disastrous World Cup campaign unfold from afar.

Now the 26-year-old has a clean slate with Joe Schmidt joining the camp as head coach before the Wallabies' opening Test of the year against Wales in July.

Wright has a chance to impress in a battle between competition heavyweights in the Brumbies and Waikato Chiefs in Melbourne on Sunday. All eyes will be on the Victorian capital during Super Round with the Brumbies taking on a Chiefs side running hot after beating the Crusaders.

"Obviously most of Australian rugby is trying to forget the last 12 months unfortunately," Wright said.

"Looking forward to June or July and the guys that deserve to be selected ideally will be and the football will look after itself. As players, that's all we can do is play. The exciting part is it's only round one and we're genuinely looking to take our game to the next level. The gold jersey is always in mind, but it's by no means a priority at this stage of the season with the Brumbies.

"It's like anything in life, I suppose, hindsight would be lovely. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, sad and upset, but it's also part of the game. We were watching some of our closest friends and teammates obviously go through a pretty disappointing time over there and that was really sad.

"But I wouldn't say looking back at it that it was a blessing in disguise, because all players that were striving to be there were watching the games."

Wright's path back to Wallaby gold started in a 30-3 win over the Melbourne Rebels in the ACT's Super Rugby season opener - and the Brumbies star isn't the only one with a point to prove.

Flyhalf Noah Lolesio outgunned Rebels playmaker Carter Gordon - with the pair likely to be in contention for the Wallabies' No.10 jersey later this year - having run for 113 metres and setting up a Corey Toole try.

But that didn't stop Wright throwing a cheeky jab at the Brumbies flyhalf about a moment he found himself in space.

"A few of us were looking on Facebook marketplace for that treadmill he was running on," Wright laughed.

"The scores are probably a reflection of the halves doing well. Unfortunately, when it's not smooth sailing they're the first guys that obviously are in the firing line, but on the flip side, you can overlook the influence that they have, but they were crucial for us against the Rebels.

"Noah had a really good start to the game, set up a couple of points early, had a good running game and then was able to just to steer us and 'Lonners' [scrumhalf Ryan Lonergan] was the same even with the extra responsibilities as captain.

"We all know the strength that we've got out there on the left. It's a beautiful thing to have outside. We're often just trying to manoeuvre the ball to Corey, he only needs to get half a look at the moment."