{"id":136701,"date":"2021-09-30T02:57:04","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T02:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=136701"},"modified":"2021-09-30T03:01:43","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T03:01:43","slug":"remarkable-wallabies-comeback-story-at-age-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=136701","title":{"rendered":"Remarkable Wallabies comeback story at age 38"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greg Holmes will become the oldest Wallaby to play a Test since World War II after the 38-year-old was named on the bench for Saturday&#x27;s Rugby Championship clash with Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran prop hasn&#x27;t played for Australia since 2016 when he left to sign with Exeter in England.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes returned home this year to play for the Force but wasn&#x27;t initially in the Wallabies frame.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Stan Sport is the only place to watch every match of<\/em><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/stan.com.au\/sport?utm_source=wwos&amp;utm_medium=partner&amp;utm_campaign=rugby_article\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"The Rugby Championship\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><em>The Rugby Championship<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>, continuing on Saturday with All Blacks vs Springboks and Wallabies vs Pumas &#8211; live, extended and ad free. Start your seven day free trial<\/em><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/stan.com.au\/sport?utm_source=wwos&amp;utm_medium=partner&amp;utm_campaign=rugby_article\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"here!\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><em>here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"32ef8983-ef75-48e6-9862-39583b24b083\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/32ef8983-ef75-48e6-9862-39583b24b083\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"3000\" data-height=\"1965\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;It was a bit of a strange one,&quot; Holmes said recently.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was sitting at a table with (coach Dave Rennie) at a Bledisloe lunch.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was doing a bit of coaching with the Force and asked if I could watch a couple of unit sessions and assumed it was about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/rugby\/australian-rugby-news-2021-nic-white-on-wallabies-resurgence\/66358308-50ae-4e70-8f1a-20a2eac417ec\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Surefire sign that the Wallabie are really back\"><strong>Surefire sign that the Wallabie are really back<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/rugby\/springboks-team-named-to-play-all-blacks-south-africa-rugby-championship-news\/0a61b1a5-db3b-462d-b545-4621ff2786f2\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Maligned world champs will &#x27;stick to their DNA&#x27;\"><strong>Maligned world champs will &#x27;stick to their DNA&#x27;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/rugby\/rugby-championship-argentina-controversial-photo-sanzaar-apology\/0a6d8c1f-e11d-46fb-9906-c0e333a9e232\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"SANZAAR apologises to &#x27;really disrespected&#x27; Pumas\"><strong>SANZAAR apologises to &#x27;really disrespected&#x27; Pumas<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"bc3e64a3-4be9-4cba-847e-f873e14a6218\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/bc3e64a3-4be9-4cba-847e-f873e14a6218\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"3255\" data-height=\"1831\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;When I rang him back, he said &#x27;mate we&#x27;ve had a few injuries and setbacks, do you want to train for the week and potentially the next month?&#x27; so it caught me a bit off guard.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve got a lot of learning to do over the next week or two to get myself into a position where I&#x27;ll be right to play.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Holmes has played 27 Tests and debuted way back in 2005.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"703eabf0-95da-49f7-8623-ba7c569ec8f6\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/703eabf0-95da-49f7-8623-ba7c569ec8f6\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"5120\" data-height=\"3413\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He will come off the bench alongside another comeback story in loose forward Sean McMahon, who hasn&#x27;t played a Test since 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Both Greg and Sean have worked extremely hard on the field and around their detail off the field and they&#x27;re both super excited to represent their country again on Saturday evening,&quot; Rennie said.<\/p>\n<p>Pete Samu will start at blindside flanker for Rob Leota while Jordan Petaia gets a run on the wing in place of Marika Koroibete.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"18e45769-6423-4e5d-94d6-042d5f387a9d\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/18e45769-6423-4e5d-94d6-042d5f387a9d\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"5568\" data-height=\"3712\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Darcy Swain starts at lock ahead of Matt Philip.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Pete&#x27;s been outstanding for us coming on as a replacement in the past few Tests and has earned his opportunity to show what he&#x27;s capable of from the kick off this weekend,&quot; Rennie said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;ve felt really well supported during all of our Tests in Australia this year and we&#x27;re looking to finishing the Rugby Championship with a performance the team and the country can be proud of.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><strong>WALLABIES (15-1):<\/strong> Reece Hodge, Jordan Petaia, Len Ikitau, Samu Kerevi, Andrew Kellaway, Quade Cooper, Nic White, Rob Valetini, Michael Hooper (c), Pete Samu, Darcy Swain, Izack Rodda, Taniela Tupou, Folau Fainga&#x27;a, James Slipper<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reserves:<\/strong> Lachlan Lonergan, Angus Bell, Greg Holmes, Matt Philip, Sean McMahon, Jake Gordon, James O&#x27;Connor, Tom Wright<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/login.nine.com.au\/login?client_id=wwos&amp;redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwwos.nine.com.au&amp;newsletter=true\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!\"><em><strong>For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> <em><strong>clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Greg Holmes will become the oldest Wallaby to play a Test since World War II after the 38-year-old was named on the bench for Saturday&#x27;s <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=136701\" title=\"Remarkable Wallabies comeback story at age 38\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136703,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136701\/revisions\/136703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}