It is with mixed emotions that former Wallaby Morgan Turinui watches the Australian side's current purple patch.

Half a world away, leading the Queensland Reds on a development tour of Ireland, the 26-year-old centre is desperate to fight his way back into a team he has not been a regular member of for over two years.

But getting back into the Wallaby team which just broke an eight-year drought against the Springboks in Durban and has another 43-year-old drought in its sights in Johannesburg this weekend, is going to be no mean feat.

"The boys are going well. They won I think their first game since 2000 in South Africa and an opportunity to win for the first time in almost 50 years at altitude and the Tri Nations," Turinui said, speaking from Galway where the Reds play Magners League team Connacht in the second game of their Irish tour on Tuesday night (AEST).

"We're a good chance at winning it, so it's a tough team to crack at the moment.

"But I think I've showed I'm not too far away and I'm playing well, so I'll just wait for a phone call.

"It has been a little while."

If it's match fitness and desire that Robbie Deans is looking for then Turinui would more than fill the requirements.

Since stepping off the field at the close of the Super 14 season in May, he has barely stopped to catch his breath, travelling to Ireland for the first time this year for the Barbarians tour, before returning to captain Australia A.

It's strong proof that Deans still has him in the mix for the first team.

He has fit in a few club games for the Sunshine Coast and is now co-captaining Queensland with another capped Australian player, prop Greg Holmes, in this 16-day tour of Ireland and France.

"I was pretty happy with the way Australia A went, even though we lost the last game to lose the tournament," he said.

"I've been playing a lot of footy so it's just a matter of keeping myself on the park in terms of keeping my body right."

The Randwick-bred Turinui also has his sights set on the future success of his adopted state after completing his first Super 14 season with Queensland following his transfer from the Waratahs as part of his ploy to get back into the national team.

"This season just gone I thought the rugby we played was really good, we just found ways not to win games and I think that's the key," he said.

"All those teams at the table didn't play great rugby every week, they just found ways to win and hopefully a tour like this, the culture it builds, will impart in the team the ability to find the way to win games.

"And that's really all we need to do, clean up a few areas of our game and just find ways to win."

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