Wallabies coach Eddie Jones has backed his young flyhalf Carter Gordon in a fierce exchange as he sticks with a settled backline for the second Bledisloe Cup Test.
Gordon will once again partner captain Tate McDermott in the halves after a promising debut start.
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The 22-year-old looked strong in attack, although his kicking was off early after missing a penalty to go with a kickoff that didn't go ten.
Jones double-downed on his comments post-match that Gordon was - and is still - the right man to start with Quade Cooper on the bench and instead threw it back on reporters in a tense exchange.
"I don’t think I got it wrong (last week). In fact, I’m going to get it right and the player will get it right. To say that a young ten’s first game, you’ve got it wrong in selecting him is a load of rubbish mate,” Jones said.
"If you know anything about Rugby, you know that tens need time in the seat. If you don’t know anything about Rugby, don’t talk to me.
“...He a young guy coming through. He’s getting enough instruction from his assistant coach. My job is just to give him to confidence to keep going forward. He’s going to make more mistakes, I can guarantee you that and he’ll learn from that. When he’s played as many games as Richie Mo’unga or (Damian) McKenzie then he’ll cease to make as many as he makes now.
“We’d love him to have a mistake-free game on Saturday but the reality is he’s a young guy learning his apprenticeship. He needs to just make the mistakes, learn from them and not listen too much from blokes like you.”
Jones has selected his fourth back-row pairing in four games, with Tom Hooper shifting to blindside flanker as Fraser McReight returns to the openside role.
"Really happy with Tom, his work rate in that game was incredible at seven. I don’t think we’ve seen anything for a long period of time (like that),” Jones remarked.
"If you look at the GPS of the game from last week, that’s one of the highest volume games I’ve coached in, I think the ball in play time was 44 minutes. Hooper had something like an average of two accelerations per minute. "He was outstanding.”
Saturday's starting side is one of the most inexperienced in the professional era, with just 277 caps, the seventh lowest.
“I think we’ve got to improve the team and we’ve decided to improve the team through promoting the young players," Jones added.
"That doesn't mean the senior players haven’t got a crucial role to play. If you have a look at our team on the weekend, we’ve got 274 caps in the starting 15 and 260 caps in three players on the finishing bench.
"That gives you an indication of where the team is and we need to keep progressing this young team forward.
“We feel they can be a team that’s capable of winning big games consistently and at the moment, we’re going through a bit of up and down as we get there.”
Wallabies (1-15): Angus Bell, David Porecki, Pone Fa'amausili, Nick Frost, Richie Arnold, Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, Rob Valetini, Tate McDermott (c), Carter Gordon, Marika Koroibete, Samu Kerevi, Jordan Petaia, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Andrew Kellaway.
Reserves: Jordan Uelese, James Slipper, Zane Nonggorr, Will Skelton, Rob Leota, Nic White, Quade Cooper, Izaia Perese.
