Eight months after he walked off a Perth field believing his Test career was over, James Slipper is being pulled back into the gold jersey. The most-capped Wallaby of all time is set to come out of international retirement for July's Nations Championship series, with coach Joe Schmidt turning to his most trusted prop as Australia's front-row stocks buckle under a run of injuries.
Slipper, 37, has been named in an Australia train-on squad that will gather in Sydney next week, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported on Wednesday. A trimmed squad of around 35 will be confirmed at the end of the week for three Tests — against Ireland in Sydney on 4 July, France in Brisbane on 11 July and Italy in Perth on 18 July. It will be Schmidt's final month in charge before Les Kiss takes over.
The veteran finished his international career with 151 caps, a tally bettered by only Welsh great Alun Wyn Jones and All Blacks lock Sam Whitelock among players to reach 150 Tests. He retired after the Rugby Championship last September but never stepped away from the game entirely, playing on for the Brumbies and breaking Wyatt Crockett's record for most Super Rugby appearances during the season — a mark he pushed to 203 games.
Schmidt had refused to slam the door on a comeback even months ago. "I don't think you'd ever say never," the coach told Stan Sport's Rugby Heaven earlier this year, when asked whether Slipper might be coaxed back. According to Nine, the outgoing coach has now convinced the Brumbies man to "have one more dance" — and Slipper has also signed a one-year extension that keeps him in Super Rugby through 2027.
The catalyst was fresh misfortune in the front row. Powerful Brumbies prop Blake Schoupp, a member of the 2023 World Cup squad, suffered what is understood to be a Lisfranc injury in the side's record 66-12 qualifying-final loss to the Hurricanes last weekend. It is cruel luck for the 28-year-old, who missed the 2024 and 2025 campaigns with shoulder and Achilles problems.
Schoupp is not the only casualty. Angus Bell, set to remain Australia's first-choice loosehead after a sabbatical with Ulster, picked up an ankle injury in Belfast and is likely to have his workload managed. The chase for further cover is complicated by a spate of knocks: Force prop Tom Robertson (calf) missed the last three rounds of Super Rugby, Waratahs prop Tom Lambert (knee) has been sidelined for a month, and Reds backrower-turned-prop Aidan Ross only recently returned from a toe injury. Isaac Kailea, capped eight times in 2024, has slipped down the pecking order.
Whether Slipper plays beyond July remains unclear. Informed sources indicated the original plan, had he extended into 2027, was to delay any return until later in the year and instead bank experience in the other front-rowers. The injuries forced the issue.
A return now keeps alive the tantalising prospect of Slipper appearing at a record fifth Rugby World Cup, on home soil in 2027. For a player who, as Waratahs coach Dan McKellar put it this week, has quietly let his rugby do the talking — "it's worked out pretty well for Slips" — one more chapter beckons.
