The advice Quade Cooper gave rookie back row amidst Bledisloe chaos
With the Wallabies missing two of their leaders, Quade Cooper has stepped up to help his troubled team try to match the might of the All Blacks.
The Australians headed straight from Melbourne to Dunedin to prepare for Saturday's second Bledisloe Cup match after being crushed 38-7 in the opening encounter at the MCG.
The Wallabies have lost Allan Alaalatoa, who led the team on Saturday night, with the prop undergoing surgery on a ruptured achilles. Co-captain Michael Hooper remains sidelined indefinitely with a calf issue.
Playmaker Cooper started on the bench at the MCG but the animated 35-year-old could be seen laying down the law to the team for several minutes in a post-match huddle.
Youngster Tom Hooper, who made his starting debut at openside flanker, revealed Cooper took him aside at half-time and told him not to try to replicate his namesake, Michael Hooper.
Coach Eddie Jones opted for the 21-year-old, who usually plays at six, rather than smaller fetcher Fraser McReight, to try to physically dominate New Zealand.
The move appeared to work early on but grew less effective as the All Blacks cruised home.
"I probably changed my game a bit too much and Quade had some really wise words at half-time and said, 'We need you to play more like a lock than a seven, that's why they've picked a big body'," Tom Hooper said.
"I probably went hunting a bit too much for the ball, if I'm being critical of myself, and I probably wasn't as physical as I would have liked."
The Wallabies missed more than twice as many tackles as the Kiwis but were forced to make 64 more than their rivals as they tried to stem their onslaught.
Former NRL great Brett Hodgson is new to the defence coach role, and to rugby union, and has come in for criticism, but Hooper defended the tactics.
"There are the slight tweaks but I think it's not the framework that's the problem," the Brumbies star said.
"He's given us a really good defensive system to work with, it's just our ability to execute and make those one on one tackles."
Hooper said the winless group remained tight, backed by Jones, who was "comforting".
"He knows we're all hurting, he knows we're all humans and when you get beaten by a score like that you're not coming off with a smile on your face," Hooper said.
"He knows we all feel it and he's going to channel that anger onto the training pitch and make sure we get quality work done in this week and that's how we're going to present a better performance."
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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