Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters has outlined his halves plan for next weekend’s fixture against Fiji with Mitch Moses set to miss some time with a leg injury.
Walters revealed Moses “wasn’t too good” in the Australian sheds post-game after leaving the thrilling win over New Zealand just minutes into the second half.
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He was replaced by Tom Dearden, who was praised by Walters for his performance when coming on in relief.
Sam Walker was left out of the side for the World Cup opener but Walters confirmed to reporters that the premiership winning halfback will wear the No. 7 next Sunday.
Walker will partner fellow Queenslander Dearden in the halves.
“He’ll (Walker) play next week. We’ll put him alongside Tom who will play five eighth,” Walters said.
“He (Dearden) was good when he came on and once he settled into the rhythm of the game. It’s hard when you come off the bench like that in the halfback position and have to just get straight into it. I thought once he was settled, he showed his class.
“It’s exciting for them. They’ll both get their chance to wear the green and gold together. I don’t think they’ve played together as a halves combo so that’ll be good.”
Walters also revealed that shadow player Ethan Strange is a chance of being parachuted into the squad, but it’ll depend on the Moses injury diagnosis.
“We can bring Ethan in if Mitch is ruled out for the tournament so we’ll see how that goes in the next couple of days,” Walters said.
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Another change Walters will make is replacing Reece Walsh with James Tedesco at fullback.
Walters said all this week that Tedesco would play next weekend and even after Walsh’s stunning performance, the Kangaroos coach is sticking to the original plan.
“James will be fullback next week. I thought this week for those guys that played in the grand final, it’s been a big few weeks,” he said, referencing Tedesco and Walker’s busy finals series for the Roosters.
“I thought what was best for Australia was that they would have a spell then they could enjoy getting the Australian jersey back on.”
On Walsh, the full-back’s former Broncos coach couldn’t help take a dig at the superstar No. 1 after he was captured vomiting on Allianz Stadium during the game.
“He’s a vomiter. He’s a chucker. People get nicknames and his is chucker,” Walters quipped.
“Because he’s not an endurance athlete, he’s a power athlete, and the amount of running that he did, he had some big efforts there a couple of times back to back.
“So yeah, we had to relieve him from his goal kicking duties. He took an eternity to line that goal up, and then he couldn’t kick it anyway.
“But he’s all right in there now. He’s pretty happy and you know for his first game back in a long period (two months), that was a very good effort.”