The announcement of the Wallabies squad to face the British and Irish Lions has come with several surprise inclusions - with Joe Schmidt giving opportunities to several bolters in the forward pack.
The inclusion of uncapped Western Force back-rower Nick Champion de Crespigny has come off a strong debut season in Super Rugby Pacific, with Joe Schmidt zeroing in on the star's ability to play in any loose forward position.
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The Force are featuring heavily off the back of an encouraging year with Darcy Swain and Tom Robertson earning recalls, while Waratahs hooker and former Wallaby captain Dave Porecki makes his return to the Test squad.
Will Skelton is also back as the only overseas inclusion with Schmidt confirming a focus on physicality and versatility in his side.
"He's massive, isn't he?," Schmidt said of Skelton to reporters.
"He's standing amongst those kids here at Stanmore. He's an impressive looking physical athlete.
"He's well known to the players. He's an established part of the team. He was with us on the Spring Tour last year. For him to slot back in is pretty easy. It all dovetailed relatively well for us to get Will involved.
"Nick [Champion de Crespigny]'s point of difference is his versatility, first and foremost. He plays 6-7-8, so having that across a back row is important.
"I think his ability to stop ball carriers in their tracks is impressive. He's a pretty accurate line-out target as well. He's got a good fast jump.
"The feedback we got from the Force all year is that he was a real galvaniser of action for them. A real glue in their squad. They're all attributes we're looking for with the Wallabies."
Champion de Crespigny, along with Robertson, Swain, Robertson, Dylan Pietsch and Nic White are set to remain with the Force for their June 28 tour match against the Lions. They'll then re-join the main squad when they head to Newcastle for Australia's Fiji Test.
As a result, several players including Isaac Kailea, Matt Philip and Rory Scott will take their places as part of a wider training squad.
"For guys to have the chance to play the Wallabies and to have teams that we believe are going to be as competitive as they can be," Schmidt explained.
"I think it was really important to be able to leave some guys there. They'll still get a full week with us before we play Fiji.
"I don't think it will be too detrimental to us. I think the positives for the Western Force outweigh anything that's detrimental for us trying to get our team together.
"Not only that, it gives us a little bit of an opportunity to just broaden the group a little bit."
The issue of Tupou's inclusion comes with several asterisks - the 59-capped Wallaby star being the first to admit he's not been playing at his best.
It was a sentiment echoed by Schmidt, but that several honest conversations had come between the player and head coach.
"I wish I could answer that," Schmidt admitted when asked how ready the Waratah prop was.
"Readiness is something that you don't really get a full feel for until you've had a week or so with the players. We're on a very tight timeframe.
"We play Fiji in two weeks. That's going to happen very, very quickly.
"We're going to try to ascertain what Taniela's mindset is once he's in the environment. [I've] had a good couple of conversations with Nela in the last week or so.
"We're confident that he's desperate to be there.
"He is desperate to be there and beyond that, he's desperate to play well. That's a good starting point."
Not only have one or two inclusions raised a few eyebrows, but also the exclusions, particularly the likes of the Reds' Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and Seru Uru, and the Force's Brandon Paenga-Amosa.
However, despite their omissions, Joe Schmidt has confirmed he'll be keeping a close eye on those players as the series goes on.
"I had a good chat with Lukan, BPA definitely and Seru as well," clarified Schmidt.
"They all had in-and-out opportunities through Super Rugby. The difference with Matt Fessler having started ten Tests for us, we just felt that we would get him in.
"One of the options with Matt is that he only spends a week with us just so that we check him out, see how he's going and then he may go back and play that game for the Reds.
"Yes, it's a 36-man squad but there's a lot of interest from us in how those players perform for their Super club against the Lions.
"With guys like Lukhan who was in our squad throughout the season, there's a lot of interest in how he goes, how BPA goes.
"Seru probably got a little less time with us - but another guy would be Josh Canham, for example, as a guy who finished the season with us and got in the squad to play in the TRC as well. Those guys are still very much in our thinking.
"It's just that in the current short term, we felt that it was really important to make a few decisions and to give a little bit of clarity to players, but also to tell them that that clarity is probably conditional on performance as well."
