SYDNEY: New Wallabies coach Michael Cheika included five debutants in his first squad unveiled on Wednesday for the November Tests in England, France, Ireland and Wales.

The 33-man Australia squad, led by 22-year-old Michael Hooper, includes three changes to the group that lost 29-28 to the All Blacks last Saturday.

The tour sees the return of injured duo Matt Toomua and Ben McCalman and the inclusion of uncapped Melbourne Rebels back-row forward Sean McMahon.

He is one of five uncapped players alongside Western Force pair Tetera Faulkner (prop) and Kyle Godwin (centre), and wingers Henry Speight (ACT Brumbies) and Tom English (Melbourne Rebels).

The Wallabies are due to fly to Europe on Friday for a five-match tour, which kicks off against the Barbarians at Twickenham on November 1.

Cheika, who will remain coach of the New South Wales Waratahs, vowed to bring his passion to the Wallabies following the shock resignation of Ewen McKenzie on Saturday.

But he said he did not want to discuss the future of his Waratahs star Kurtley Beale, who has been stood down pending a hearing on Friday in the latest in a series of off-field troubles which ultimately led to McKenzie’s walkout.

“I won’t be answering any questions on that today ... I don’t want to prejudice anything that’s going to happen with Kurtley in any way,” said Cheika.

With Cheika’s appointment, the Australian Rugby Union also brought in NSW Waratahs defence coach Nathan Grey.

He will be part of a three-man coaching line-up for the tour alongside Cheika and existing forwards coach Andrew Blades.

A year before the World Cup, the tour under a new coach offers Australia a fresh start after successive defeats to South Africa, Argentina and the All Blacks.

Cheika’s teams aspire to play an expansive, attacking game once known as the “Randwick Way” after one of Australia’s most successful clubs, which is based in the seaside suburb of Coogee where he grew up the son of Lebanese immigrants.

An uncompromising number eight not afraid to let his fists do the talking at Randwick in the 1980s, Cheika helped lay the platform which allowed the likes of David Campese and the Ella brothers to strut their stuff.

His rugby journey has been anything but a straightforward path from Coogee Oval across Sydney harbour to the offices of the Australian Rugby Union in the leafy North Shore suburb of St Leonards, though.

His playing career took him to France, and possibly cost him the chance to play test rugby, while he started coaching in Italy before leading Paris club Stade Francais for a less successful two years after his stint in Ireland.

He subsequently speaks French and Italian fluently, skills he used to make a small fortune in an unlikely but highly successful foray into the world of high fashion.

He returned to Sydney in 2012 and promised a bit of “old school” coaching when he took over at the Waratahs after a season in which Australia’s strongest and wealthiest province had lost eight successive matches and ended up 11th in the 15-team competition.

The ninth place finish in his first season was only a slight improvement but it was with a squad he had inherited and he made a few choice manpower changes for 2014, mainly to beef up the pack.