England vs Australia: Kurtley Beale and Adam Ashley-Cooper not selected due to bringing women back to team hotel

The experienced Wallabies pair have been left out of this Saturday’s autumn international against England after senior players informed Michael Cheika of the breach of protocol following the Wales defeat

Adam Ashley-Cooper brought three women including his sister-in-law back to the team hotel along with Kurtley Beale (Getty)

Kurtley Beale and Adam Ashley-Cooper were not considered for selection by Australia boss Michael Cheika for this Saturday’s autumn international with England after they broke team protocols, having brought women back to the team hotel on the night of the defeat by Wales.

The scandal, which only came to light on the eve of the final Quilter International of the November test window, gets even more bizarre after it was revealed that one of the women among those brought back by the pair was Ashley-Cooper’s sister-in-law.

It’s understood that the pair brought a group of three women – Ashley-Cooper’s sister-in-law and two of her friends – back to the team hotel in Newport in the hours after the 9-6 defeat against Australia on 10 November in Cardiff.

The three women left the hotel by 10:30pm that night, but the team's rules state that no guests are allowed at any time and after senior players including captain Michael Hooper, David Pococl, Allan Alaalatoa, Samu Kervi and Nick Phipps escalated it to Cheika, a decision was taken to ban them from selection for one Test.

Cheika only discovered the breach of protocol on the Monday of this week, when other senior players approached him after deeming their actions unacceptable given it went against their own rules.

Beale has not been selected after breaching the Wallabies' player protocols (Getty)

"It's a relatively minor rule we have and no third parties are involved, it's just inside our team," Cheika said on the eve of Australia’s final match of 2018.

"The leadership group came to me earlier in the week and asked me to deal with it in a way I thought was appropriate and I thought this was the appropriate way."

Neither player featured in Cheika’s team announcement on Thursday, with Beale’s omission a surprise given his status in the squad – although the head coach claimed that his absence was due to his poor run of form – while 34-year-old Ashley-Cooper only returned to the squad for the November tour as he looks to make a late push for selection at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Following Pocock's late withdrawal from the squad due to a neck injury, Beale has initially been expected to be called up to the replacements' bench with Pete Samu starting at No 8, but his ban now means that Marika Koroibete is selected instead in a split of five forwards and three backs.