MELBOURNE :Joseph Suaalii’s Australia centre partner Len Ikitau is hoping to get the rugby league convert involved in the game earlier and more often in the second test against the British & Irish Lions on Saturday.
Suaalii made an explosive entry into test rugby against England last November but was a bit part player as the Wallabies were dominated by the Lions for the first hour of the 27-19 loss in Brisbane last week.
Inside centre Ikitau took the crash ball option more often than not in the face of a fierce Lions rush defence with the result that Suaalii received very little clean possession to exploit.
“We’ve only played a handful of games together but it’s just trying to understand in what places he’d like to get the ball and kind of just feeding off each other,” Ikitau told reporters on Tuesday.
“I felt like I didn’t really get him into the game as early as I wanted, but that’s a lot of learnings that I can take moving forward.”
Suaalii was not the only Australian back who struggled to get his hands on the ball in the first half of the series opener with talented right winger Max Jorgensen restricted to a couple of touches before he scored a try off a box kick.
“We knew there were opportunities with their line speed and how they wanted to attack us in defence, but I think just being able to pull the trigger when the opportunity comes and backing our ability to pull the trigger,” Ikitau said.
“A few times I think we were just conservative and held the ball where there’s opportunities out wide.”
Some in Australia have urged coach Joe Schmidt to rejig his backline and give Suaalii a run in the outside backs on Saturday.
“To be honest, if he’s on the field that’s the best thing for us, just somewhere on the field,” said Ikitau.
“If he’s playing 13, if he’s on the wing, fullback, I know that he’s just a freak of an athlete and he can step up to the occasion and just play his footy.
“He always (says) at the end of the day, it’s a footy game and he’s a footballer so I don’t think it would faze him.”
