MELBOURNE -- Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt says Harry Wilson is comfortable being captain but the Kiwi has no plan to settle on a permanent skipper, instead preferring to stick with a leadership group.
Schmidt on Thursday confirmed his team for the second Test against the British and Irish Lions, bringing back injured forwards Will Skelton and Rob Valetini, as well as hooker Dave Porecki, for the must-win clash at the MCG.
Despite suggestions Wilson could drop out of the run-on side to accommodate the return of Skelton, potentially giving allowing the Wallabies to use a taller lineout option in the form of Tom Hooper, the Queenslander has been retained at No. 8 and again captains Australia.
Asked why Wilson hadn't then been given the job on a permanent basis, Schmidt said having one clear leader wasn't an issue for the Wallabies.
"To be honest it's not something we've talked about. Harry's captain again this week and Harry is very comfortable with how that is at the moment," Schmidt told reporters in Melbourne.
"We have a pretty strong leadership group and those guys tend to share the responsibility to lead the team. In the huddle today, the guy speaking wasn't Harry.
"It is very mixed in how those discussions are taken on and we like the fact that the responsibility is shared. Harry doesn't have a massive experience of captaining teams. He hasn't done it that often, so it's still something he's coming to terms with and learning about."
This weekend's Test against the Lions will be the ninth time in 10 Tests that Wilson has led Australia after first taking the reins against Argentina in Santa Fe last year.
Veteran prop Allan Alaalatoa is the only other player to have captained the Wallabies over that period, against Wales in Cardiff, yet Schmidt still doesn't see the need to declare Wilson his full-time skipper going forward.
Speaking to ESPN ahead of the first Test, former Wallabies skipper Stephen Moore, who led Australia from 2015 to 2017, said the captaincy situation wasn't ideal, but believed Schmidt must have some reasoning behind his latency to hand Wilson the job on a permanent basis.
"Yeah it'll be very tricky for Harry I know, he's a fairly laid-back guy and he's probably taking it in his stride. But look I can't imagine Joe would have wanted to be in this situation where you don't quite know who your captain is," Moore told ESPN.
"Maybe he does know, he might have just said 'look I'm just not going to announce it but this is going to stay as it as it's been'. But certainly to the outside public, you want to have your captain announced and be out the front leading the side alongside the coach.
"And yeah, how many captains we had in the last three or four years? Probably too many so maybe they haven't landed on who that is. But it would be a little bit different for Harry, he was captain last year and again the other week; it's not ideal. But look I don't think Joe, that would be his preference, but that's just the way the circumstances have panned out."
Wilson is not the captain of the Reds, meaning he had little experience in the role before injuries saw him assume the leadership of the team during the second Test against the Springboks in Perth last year.
For his part, Wilson believes he is growing into the role.
"I guess the more time I have had in the role, the more confidence I've gotten in it," Wilson told reporters after the Wallabies' captain's run. "I feel as though I am still learning a lot and still developing as a leader, but it's obviously been good having so much leadership around me, they've really help me through it all.
"When I came in it was a little bit unknown, but having people around me like James Slipper and Allan Alaalatoa gives you a lot of confidence."
Schmidt said Wilson was learning how to manage referees, which could be crucial this weekend with Italian Andrea Piardi taking charge at the MCG, a referee the Wallabies have only had once before -- against Ireland in their final Test of 2024.
The difference in the way the breakdown was refereed from last week's first Test in Brisbane to the Lions' final tour match against the First Nations-Pasifika XV was stark, and while it was Georgian Nika Amashukeli who took charge of Tuesday night's clash the Wallabies, Australia should expect some changes in style under Piardi compared with last Saturday's referee Ben O'Keeffe.
"It doesn't probably change it too much, because it's the same [referee] team of three or team of five," Schmidt said Thursday.
"For us, we just have to adapt to what they allow. That's something that, again, as a less experienced [Wallabies] team, is part of the learning process. While we see it as a pinnacle event, inevitably, when you have less experience, you are still learning. That's something that we're trying to fast-track as much as we possibly can.
"We've had Andrea before, against Ireland at the end of November last year, in what was a very tight game against one of the top teams in the world. I think we've just got to focus on ourselves, really. The referee, mostly they know the laws.
"There's one contentious one about taking a throw-in in front of the mark and what the consequence of that is. Harry had an idea of what not allowing it to go five metres was and [he] expressed that, but was told that wasn't the rule. Those are some of the things that Harry's growing in. I thought that was really good from Harry.
"That's one of the things that, I think, having had experienced players in the past, and not necessarily even captain, even when Johnny [Sexton] wasn't captain, I think he was a bit of a handful for referees, because his law knowledge was incredibly good."
Just how long Wilson continues in the role without being declared Australia's fulltime leader, if he ever is at all, remains to be seen.
But one thing is clear for the Wallabies this weekend: defeat at the MCG will mean the series is over, and with it a golden chance to really reinvigorate Australian rugby.