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John Cooney's cryptic message after recent upturn in form
By Josh Raisey
It would be hard to find any player that has ever bounced back from the misery of missing out on a place at a World Cup better than Ulster’s John Cooney has this season.
The scrum-half was a controversial omission from Joe Schmidt’s squad to travel to Japan in September, but he has channelled any disappointment he may have felt with some brilliant club form so far this winter.
The eight-cap Ireland international is to date the Guinness PRO14’s top scorer this campaign, helping to steer Ulster to second place in their conference. However, it is in the Heineken Champions Cup where he has made the greatest impact so far.
In their opening game of the tournament, the 29-year-old put in a man of the match performance away at Bath before a try-scoring display against Clermont a week later in their win at the Kingspan Stadium.
He was thrown into the limelight again last weekend with more heroics, kicking a match-winning penalty against Harlequins. The scrum-half has since taken to Instagram to share a photo with a cryptic caption ahead of Ulster’s rematch this Friday with the Londoners:
"https://www.rugbypass.com/news/he-has-still-got-a-lot-to-develop-still-got-a-lot-to-learn-and-he-knows-that-but-he-is-desperate-to-do-that-dan-mcfarland">Cooney has had to effectively do this alone.
Then again, such a disappointment as missing out on the RWC has perhaps been the motivation that Cooney has needed for this upturn in form and ultimately it has put him in a better position for his province and country than he would have been in if he went to Japan.
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I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
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