Rugby Eddie Jones Wallabies draft squads snapped at Super Round
Queensland playmaker Tom Lynagh continues to prove he's no "nepo baby" with another rousing performance in the Reds' crushing Super Rugby Pacific win over the Western Force.
The 19-year-old son of Wallabies great Michael Lynagh showed the trendy term, given to offspring of the famous afforded special opportunities through nepotism, does not apply.
His showing in the Reds' 71-20 victory at AAMI Park on Sunday will create a selection headache for coach Brad Thorn ahead of their clash with the Brumbies, with Wallabies veteran James O'Connor also impressing off the bench.
And it seems he has already caught the eye of Wallabies coach Eddie Jones, who included the 19-year-old among his notes for an "April Camp Draft 1" that was captured by an eagle-eye punter at AAMI Park on Sunday.
A photo of Jones compiling two team lists for his opening training camp as Wallabies coach was posted to Twitter and then deleted a short while later, but not before it was spread around rugby social media circles.
Lynagh's name was there in the second column alongside Reds teammate Suliasi Vunivalu, who scored an intercept try and set up another in Queensland's thrashing of the Force.
The youngster's fellow Super Rugby rookie, the Waratahs' Max Jorgensen, was also among Jones' lists after he added a third try for the season in NSW's 46-17 win over Fijian Drua a night earlier.
Jones had slated Brumbies halves Nic White and Noah Lolesio in his first line-up, the duo again coming off the bench in ACT's impressive 25-20 victory over fellow competition heavyweights the Blues.
But in his first fully-fledged games as a professional playmaker, Lynagh has shown he will not be overawed by defensive traffic or the need to steer his team around.
As well as orchestrating Queensland's rampant attack, Lynagh pulled off a try-saving tackle in the first half that stalled any hope of a Force fightback.
Lynagh shifted from his home town of London when he finished school to follow in his father's footsteps at Queensland, making his Super debut last week.
Thorn said he wasn't surprised by what the youngster brought to the game.
"I'm not surprised by it, but I'm pleased by it. I had belief," Thorn said.
"A 17-year-old comes across the other side of the world with a pretty heavy last name and grits his teeth.
"One month in he did an army camp, he came from living in London and he's got people yelling at him, and the heat and the different culture.
"I held that in high regard. You can't have anything but respect for someone who backs themselves.
"He's quiet and unassuming but he gets stuff done."
As a former All Blacks forward, Thorn liked the way Lynagh was prepared to get his hands dirty.
"He looks like a choirboy, he could be 14, but I see him kick the goals and carry well, but the stuff I've noticed with him that I've liked, around 10s I've played with, is that he's not afraid to put his head in a ruck and he'll put his body on the line in a tackle.
"It doesn't mean he's going to do some big hit or some big clean-out but he will put himself in there and you respect that.
"Guys like (former England five-eighth) Jonny Wilkinson, they were small guys but they put their bodies on the line."
Jones faces arguably his biggest call at fly-half later this year when he must either back one of a growing list of young guns that also includes Waratahs duo Ben Donaldson and Tane Edmed as his Wallabies No. 10, or backtracks to the proven options of Quade Cooper or Bernard Foley.
Dave Rennie had, before his sacking, made it clear Cooper was at the top of his list, before also preferring Foley ahead of Lolesio for much of the Rugby Championship and then the early games of the spring tour.
But speaking on the ABC's Offsiders program on Sunday, Jones seemed to indicate Cooper, too, was his man, before he was later pressed on that choice and began to backtrack.
"We'll need to have three No.10s at the World Cup, Quade could be one of them and the other two spots are wide open," Jones clarified.
Cooper has not played since tearing his Achilles tendon in the Wallabies' opening Rugby Championship encounter against Argentina. He has completed the bulk of his recovery at home in Queensland but is hoping to return to Japan and catch the end of the League One season with Kintetsu to get some rugby under his belt.
