Samu Kerevi distances himself from positional switch as Wallabies search for new centre

Samu Kerevi playing for Australia v Argentina in 2023
Samu Kerevi doesn’t believe that he is the answer following the injury to Len Ikitau which left Australia searching for an outside centre.
Ikitau is a doubt for the start of the Rugby World Cup after fracturing his shoulder blade in the Wallabies’ 34-31 defeat to Argentina over the weekend.
After Ikitau went off, Carter Gordon came on and Kerevi shifted to the outside centre channel.
Experience at 13
The 29-year-old has plenty of experience in that position but he was moved to 12 ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and has remained there since.
That recent lack of game time at 13 showed as Los Pumas continually exploited the midfield, with the visitors having plenty of success with their set-piece moves.
Kerevi is therefore hesitant to take the role and believes there are other options available to head coach Eddie Jones.
“It’s funny, through the (Queensland) Reds years I was playing 13 and I actually didn’t like playing 12,” he told reporters.
“Coming up with the Wallabies, I hated it and Cheik (former coach Michael Cheika) would put me there and obviously the Reds started putting me there.
“I’ll do whatever’s best for the team. But we’ve got some depth there. (Izaia) Perese has been playing well for the Waratahs. He’s training the house down, and some other backs that can fill that role.
“Obviously Lalakai (Foketi) can play there, shift from 12 to 13.”
Australia went with a 6-2 split for Saturday’s Rugby Championship encounter in Sydney, which they paid the price for after Ikitau went off.
And Kerevi admitted that the Wallabies had not prepared for that eventuality as they played the rest of the match without arguably their most important back.
“We prepared for different scenarios. That was the last one on my list, having Lenny out,” he said.
“Defensively, he’s one of the best in the world that I’ve played with. He’s been great there. Even his voice out there.”
Positives
Despite the disappointing defeat to Argentina, they were a threat on attack and scored some nice tries by playing at pace.
“Eddie wants us to be like that,” Kerevi added.
“He wants us to play the game fast. We just didn’t have enough moments in the game to hold onto the ball to do that, to connect with each other through phases and get into that deep-phase count.
“Once we get that ball, we can move it really well. The game we want to play is there. Just little things, like the breakdown, little errors, are not allowing us to fully play that.
“But the feeling is positive. We want to keep pushing the boundaries in our skill set. We’re not going to find out (the limits) if we just do it at training. We’ve got to do in Test matches as well.
“We’ve got to learn some hard lessons. There’s a big goal at the end of the year and we’re striving for that and we don’t want to leave any stone unturned. We want to play as hard as we can.”
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