{"id":6882,"date":"2025-05-19T00:31:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T04:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/oconnor-craves-wallabies-return-dreams-of-facing-the-lions\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T00:31:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T04:31:53","slug":"oconnor-craves-wallabies-return-dreams-of-facing-the-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/rugby\/oconnor-craves-wallabies-return-dreams-of-facing-the-lions\/","title":{"rendered":"O&#8217;Connor craves Wallabies return: Dreams of facing the Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>James O&#8217;Connor, after his outstanding performance with the Crusaders, has expressed his desire to return to the Wallabies and participate in the series against the British &amp; Irish Lions, an event he considers of greater magnitude than the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">O&#8217;Connor busca un lugar en los Wallabies<\/h2>\n\n\n<p>O&#8217;Connor, 34, has held a &#8220;good conversation&#8221; with Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt about the possibility of a surprise return for the three-match series against the Lions in Australia this winter.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I want to be involved with the Wallabies again.<\/p><cite>James O&#8217;Connor<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The player, who has shone in his role as a substitute in the Crusaders, feels that he can still contribute a lot to the team, especially in the quest for victory against the Lions.<\/p>\n\n<p>O&#8217;Connor acknowledges the quality of the young players, but believes his experience could be an added value. &#8220;I feel I can contribute something. Any role I can play to help us beat the Lions,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a3.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F0519%2Fr1495168_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"James O&#039;Connor\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>The Wallabies&#8217; opening position was expected to be contested between Noah Lolesio, Tom Lynagh, and Ben Donaldson. However, O&#8217;Connor is confident in his ability to fill that position.<\/p>\n\n<p>O&#8217;Connor, who was included in the opening position by Robbie Deans at the age of 23 in the 2013 series against the Lions, feels that he is now a much more complete player. &#8220;In 2013, I wasn&#8217;t intimidated, but I had a grudge, I was sure I was the best. I believed I could do the job,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n<p>The player admitted to having learned a lot from experienced figures like Jonathan Davies and Brian O&#8217;Driscoll in the defeat of the third match of the series in Sydney. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know what to do at that moment. I had never been in that situation before and I wasn&#8217;t smart enough, I didn&#8217;t have the game knowledge to regain that momentum,&#8221; he commented.<\/p>\n\n<p>His development as a game strategist came after playing abroad in 2013. &#8220;I went to Toulon and started learning from Gits (Matt Giteau) and Jonny Wilkinson, and even learning from Ma&#8217;a Nonu and Bryan Habana and those types of players,&#8221; he recounted.<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;I moved to Sale and spent a lot of time with AJ MacGinty and also with Faf de Klerk, understanding how they play and then combined it all into my own experience when I returned to the Reds,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n<p>O&#8217;Connor, who has played primarily as fullback and center in the 2011 and 2019 World Cups, considers a Lions series to be an event of greater magnitude. &#8220;It&#8217;s bigger, man. World Cups are amazing, but the Lions, they blew me away,&#8221; he stated.<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;I grew up watching the league and rugby, but I&#8217;d never really watched a Lions series before and the older players had said how big it was. But I was thinking, &#8216;Oh, look, I&#8217;ve done a World Cup, great, it can&#8217;t get any bigger than a World Cup.&#8217; But it&#8217;s only two teams and I remember in every place we went, whether it was Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney, there were 60,000 people,&#8221; he finished.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James O&#8217;Connor, after his outstanding performance with the Crusaders, has expressed his desire to return to the Wallabies and participate in the series against the British &amp; Irish Lions, an event he considers of greater magnitude than the Rugby World Cup. O&#8217;Connor busca un lugar en los Wallabies O&#8217;Connor, 34, has held a &#8220;good conversation&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[513,920,203,921],"class_list":{"0":"post-6882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-british-irish-lions","9":"tag-james-oconnor","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-wallabies"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}