KURTLEY BEALE will miss a vital stepping stone towards becoming a Wallaby under new coach Robbie Deans after being ruled out of the Australian under-20s team for the Junior World Championship, starting on Friday.
Beale has been sidelined for three to four weeks after breaking down with a right ankle injury in the 55th minute of the Super 14 final on Saturday, when Deans's Crusaders defeated the Waratahs 20-12. The injury has been diagnosed as syndesmosis.
Deans spoke with Beale, 19, and Waratahs No.13 Rob Horne, 18, after the final in Christchurch to explain why they would not be named today in his 30-man Wallabies squad for Tests against Ireland and France.
As with every Super 14 player who is eligible for the under-20s side, Deans said he wanted them to experience the Junior World Championship, to be held in Wales, before being elevated to the Wallabies.
Beale has been confined to rehabilitation. But Deans told him and Horne that they - along with the other eight Super 14 players in the Brian Melrose-coached Australian under-20s side that left for Wales yesterday - would be considered for Wallabies selection for the Tri Nations and the end-of-season tour to Hong Kong and Europe.
Of those 10 under-20s players, the best Wallaby prospects apart from Beale and Horne are back-rower David Pocock (Force), five-eighth Quade Cooper (Reds) and possibly prop Dan Palmer (Waratahs).
Deans, who arrives in Sydney today to start his new job as the first non-Australian Wallabies coach, yesterday said: "I am keen for the Colts players to go to the Colts tournament. You only get one crack at that generally.
"I am keen for those blokes to get that because they will learn from the experience and opportunity. So they won't be considered for the announcement of this squad.
"Hopefully they will go over [to Wales] and thrive and win it, then come back and we will push on."
Deans made it clear he believes the promotion of Beale and Horne to the Wallabies is imminent.
"You have seen them play. They are going great guns. There is nothing concrete, but [while] they are not being considered in this instance, they will be down the track," he said.
"They are exciting talent. So they are on the radar and clearly a lot of them [the under 20s] are going to be Wallabies. It is just a matter of when the time is right and what is in the best interests of them and of us."
Deans also believes the Super 14 players in the under-20s side will learn from the added responsibility that will be handed to them at the Junior World Championship.
Meanwhile, the extent to which Deans has been preparing to take over the Wallabies position while simultaneously guiding the Crusaders to a record seventh Super title win is becoming clearer by the day.
Apart from liaising with Wallabies forwards coach Michael Foley and former Australian Rugby Union high performance boss Pat Howard on selections, he has also been speaking to former Wallabies star Stephen Larkham. "He called me up to see my point of view on how the team is going and what we were trying to do," the former Test five-eighth, who is now committed to playing in Japan, told the Sunday News newspaper.
"He's got a very simple concept of how the game should be played and a very successful one coming from the Crusaders. This year … the guys will be really willing and keen to impress."
