Matt Giteau, 103 Tests, on the KOKO Show: “That jersey is special.” Les Kiss, naming Jordan Petaia for Perth, says he only wants to see him.
“You know, to play for the Wallabies, you need to earn it.”
Matt Giteau, 103 Tests for Australia, said it on Monday’s KOKO Show. He was talking about one name in the Jordan Petaia Wallabies squad announcement. Les Kiss had named it that morning for the Springboks in Perth on Sunday 27 September, the next Test on the 2026 schedule.
Petaia is back. He is 26, has 31 caps, and last played a Test on 9 September 2023, against Georgia at the World Cup. Since then he chased the NFL and got four months on a Chargers roster. Thirteen games for Perpignan. A contract in Japan where the season has not started.
Nobody on the couch said he did not deserve it. All three said something harder to answer, and it bears on the jersey more than it bears on Perth.
Three years since a Test, two since Australians last watched him play. Should a Wallabies squad place go to a player nobody here has seen in that time?
Thirteen games since he left the Reds, and none of them here
Drew Mitchell, 71 Tests, raised it first and had the record ready.
“Jordan Petaia is in there which I think that’s probably the big surprise for me.”
Asked how it came about, he went to the record.
“It must be just previous history from the Reds with Kissy [Les Kiss] cuz you know he had a year to go try his thing in the NFL that didn’t work. Then he went to Perpignan, played 13 games in total for a year in Perpignan. Eight of those he started at 11, 13, 14 and 15. So didn’t really lock down a spot or a position and then he’s since gone to Japan and they haven’t started playing yet.”
The record backs him. The Los Angeles Chargers signed Petaia on 2 April 2025 and waived him on 7 August. Perpignan gave him 13 appearances and he scored once. Urayasu D-Rocks signed him in July, and Japan’s League One season has not begun.
Kiss had him for one season at the Reds, in 2024, and injury wrecked most of it. Six games.
Kiss, asked on Monday, did not argue with the arithmetic. He explained the pick as something other than a pick.
“It was just the ideal opportunity to see Jordan; he’s been out of the system for a couple of years now,” he said. “He has played in two World Cups; we just wanted to have a touch base with him, have him come and work out with us, see how he’s going.”
Then the line that gives Giteau his answer and hands him a new one: “We haven’t selected that team yet, but we have selected the squad.”
Come back and prove yourself
Someone on the couch offered Kiss a defence: it has to be based on previous history. Giteau would not have it.
“No, I just don’t think you can do that. You got to come back and prove you[rself]. It’s similar to what I thought with Carter Gordon. Like I think since he’s played he’s been great, but you still got to earn your spot. He came straight back from league and went on [the end of] season tour. I just don’t think it’s the right message.”
Gordon is the precedent and the complication. He left the Titans on 13 October last year and was in the Wallabies spring tour squad the same day. He started against Italy in Udine, his first Test since the 2023 World Cup, and by August Kiss wanted a more direct Wallabies with Gordon at 10.
Then came a leg injury in Mendoza, and the vacancy Harry McLaughlin-Phillips, uncapped, now fills.
So the shortcut worked. Giteau still thinks it was the wrong message. That is the harder thing to say once the player has come good. A rule that only applies when the player turns out to be ordinary is not a rule.
Nobody is saying he doesn’t deserve it
Mitchell gave the selectors their best argument himself. “I just think, looking at the lack of footy that Jordan’s played in the last two, three years, they got to be seeing something though.” Then he answered it: “But from where?”
Giteau drew the line where the whole argument sits.
“Well, we’re not saying that he doesn’t deserve the spot. It’s just from what you’ve seen like no one’s watched a great deal of football and he hasn’t played a great deal. So my argument is more around the message you’re sending out.”
And the rest of the line at the top.
“…not that he hasn’t earned it by training overseas, but you got to come back and play your trade here and we can see some footy is what I think.”
Kiss’s own answer on position confirms how far from a Test pick this is.
“Positionally, we know he’s covered wing, 15 and 13 in the past, so once he hits the ground with us, we’ll have a good look at it, but it’ll definitely be in one of those positions, likely a back three position, I’d say, at this stage.” A coach who has selected a player knows where.
The other option was already in the country
Mitchell’s second point is the one Rugby Australia will hear most. Which position, and why him?
“So, is Petaia an outside back or is he a centre? Like, don’t you think that would have been the perfect situation just to get a Zac Lomax into a squad?”
Mitchell had just listed the men already in front of him: Isaac Henry, Hunter Paisami, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau. Then the point.
“Petaia’s unlikely to play, but if we want to get someone like Zac Lomax and make the most of him while he’s here in the game, and potentially in a World Cup squad, wouldn’t you think that getting him in and around the program right now would have been the better option?”
Lomax started at 13 for the Western Force against the Reds at Ballymore on Saturday, in the same game where McLaughlin-Phillips kicked the winner. The panel thought his first go at outside centre “wasn’t awful” and said that if the Force are going to use him there, they should leave him there.
Mitchell’s point stands either way: a look at Lomax is a look at a player who has spent the year in Australia, in front of Australian coaches, and who would be in a World Cup conversation on evidence.
Read also: Super Rugby AUS exists to give players like John Bryant the game time they were not getting. It is the competition Kiss could have watched Petaia in. Petaia was not there.
Mitchell made the same kind of point from the same couch a fortnight ago, when he said the Argentina series did not count. Two games are not a series. Thirteen games in France are not a case.
Jordan Petaia Wallabies squad: what the list should have said
Kiss has already conceded the point Giteau made. He said the word “squad” and the words “haven’t selected that team” in the same breath, and he described the fortnight as a chance to “work out with us”. A training invitation with a squad number on it.
The honest version costs nothing. Name him as exactly that, say he is not in contention for the 23, and the message Giteau is worried about disappears, because nobody was ever going to think thirteen games in Perpignan earned a Test against the world champions.
Leave it as a squad place and the message is the one the panel heard: play anywhere, and the door stays open.
There are two Bledisloe Tests in October and the Nations Championship after that. The look could have waited a fortnight.
Read next: Kieran Read says Australia match up better to the Springboks than the All Blacks did. None of the reasons he gives is a player who has not played a Test since 2023.
Your turn: on the record
Petaia does not make the 23 in Perth, and Kiss says so before the team is named. Screenshot it. If he starts on the wing against Kurt-Lee Arendse, the comments are open on Sunday night, and Giteau will have been wrong about the message and right about everything else.
Frequently asked
Why is Jordan Petaia in the Wallabies squad?
Les Kiss called it “the ideal opportunity to see Jordan”, who has not played a Test since the 2023 World Cup. Kiss wanted to “touch base” and have him train with the squad, and said the Test team had not been selected. Any role would be in the back three.
Who came into the Wallabies squad for the Springboks and who dropped out?
Petaia, Harry McLaughlin-Phillips and Zane Nonggorr came in, with Jock Campbell confirmed. Carter Gordon (leg) and Massimo De Lutiis dropped out, and Dylan Pietsch remains sidelined. The squad plays South Africa at Optus Stadium on Sunday 27 September.
When did Jordan Petaia last play for Australia?
On 9 September 2023 against Georgia at the World Cup in France, his 31st cap. He then joined the NFL’s International Player Pathway, signed for the Los Angeles Chargers in April 2025, was waived in August, and played 13 games for Perpignan before signing for Urayasu D-Rocks in Japan.
