The Wallabies were already set for their most arduous pre-Rugby World Cup schedule -- then Rugby Australia added a seventh Test before the opening whistle will sound at next year's global showpiece.
Tuesday's announcement that Australia will host Ireland in Canberra next year will have come as a complete surprise to all but a few people with knowledge of the negotiations, which hopefully will have included incoming Wallabies coach Les Kiss.
But as Tom Wright and Allan Alaalatoa stood alongside RA boss Phil Waugh on Tuesday, it was hard not to question the intelligence of a seventh pre-World Cup Test, nor feel the irony of the presence of the two sidelined Wallabies stars, and think of one thing: Injuries.
While Kiss may publicly back the decision to stage a final Test just nine days before Australia open their home tournament against Hong Kong in Perth, privately he must be fearful of how many troops will have already been crossed off his whiteboard.
Australia were already due to contest a full Rugby Championship in a World Cup year for the first time in the history of the southern hemisphere's annual flagship event, meaning they will face South Africa, Argentina and New Zealand twice each.
In 2023, Australia lost Allan Alaalatoa, Len Ikitau and then-skipper Michael Hooper to injury, despite the latter two eventually returning to fitness in time for the World Cup in France. And that was from just four Rugby Championship Tests.
As it was, Eddie Jones instead decided the duo were surplus to requirements given they had missed the final two games of the Rugby Championship. That decision at least spared Ikitau and Hooper the ignominy of the Wallabies' first pool stage exit.
Later, skipper Will Skelton and prop Taniela Tupou joined the injury ward. The key forwards picked up calf and hamstring injuries ahead of the loss to Fiji and played no further part in the tournament.
So while injuries are an ever-present reality of Test rugby -- any level of rugby, for that matter -- the decision to stage this seventh pre-World Cup Test is at best risky, but at worst completely unnecessary.
Australia's World Cup depth will be tested like never before, which at least supports the acquisitions of NRL stars Angus Crichton and Zac Lomax that were announced earlier this year.
"I think we've seen pressure across different positions in selection, which is really important," Waugh said of the Wallabies' World Cup preparedness as he announced the fixture with Ireland on Tuesday.
"Ultimately if you've got pressure for selection, individual performances lift, and I think we've seen that across Super Rugby in the early stages. And, ultimately, it's going to be about that run to the World Cup and strong performances, but growth through to 2027."
That run to the World Cup indeed, Phil.
Having come off what will be six furious Test encounters with the [current] No. 1-, No. 2- and No. 5 teams in the world, in what universe would the Wallabies need a final tune-up before they face the might of Hong Kong at Optus Stadium on Sep. 29?
Using last year's Rugby Championship as a guide, Australia saw Dylan Pietsch, Tom Wright, Ben Donaldson, Tate McDermott, Langi Gleeson and Andrew Kellaway all go down with injury, either in the build-up to, or across, the six Tests.
Only Wright and McDermott were at that stage guaranteed places in the matchday 23, but injuries erode the depth of a squad regardless; the Wallabies were also without Ikitau for the loss to Argentina in Sydney because of a lacerated knee.
Meanwhile, by the time the Wallabies face Ireland in Canberra, RA will have already staged one more home Test than in previous World Cup years, improving the governing body's bottom line -- which takes a significant hit whenever the Webb Ellis Trophy is up for grabs. Only this time around, RA has already received a cheque for $100 million as World Cup hosts.
There will be tales of World Cup dreams ruined regardless -- that is the nature of professional sport.
But for Rugby Australia to add an additional Test into an already crowded pre-World Cup schedule appears a decision that is counterintuitive to everything they should have learned about player welfare and training loads since the horrific injury toll that engulfed the 2022 Test season; so, too, its push for greater alignment down through Super Rugby.
This is no sleight on Canberra, whose rugby community deserves top-level rugby despite a stadium that, at best, requires some TLC, or, according to some, like former Wallabies star turned senator David Pocock, needs redeveloping completely.
But GIO Stadium could have been used instead during the 2026 Nations Championship or Rugby Championship; the jamming of a seventh Test ahead of what is the most important rugby event Australia has seen since 2003 feels like an unnecessary cash grab.
And one that could add to an injury toll that may have already robbed Kiss and the Wallabies of some of their brightest stars.
