Quade Cooper’s rugby has a certain “look” to it. When he’s bopping away at odd angles, ball in two hands, flicking it onto his boot or behind his back or dishing out passes for a hard charger off his hip, he moves in a singular, angular way. And you can’t look away.
And that’s before he starts to run. That’s when it can get really funky. For when Cooper is in flight, jagging, head back like a Christmas turkey on a last dash for freedom, you don’t know what might happen. Which way will he go? Will he kick? Will he pass? Will he step the giant back-rower, throw the ball backwards over his head and be flattened like roadkill?
When you don’t know what Cooper’s going to do, it’s compelling viewing, you can’t turn away. And rugby is a happy place.
Yet Cooper remains as maligned a figure as Australian rugby has had since James O’Connor declared himself (correctly, as it happens) a “brand”. And some people – 100% of whom, if you had to guess a percentage, would not have met the man – don’t like him. Shane Watson, Michael Clarke and dear sweet Ricky Stuart could empathise. Some people, for whatever reason, are parodied, disliked, “hated”. And a cross-section of our community, given free rein in our anti-social media, can’t help but pile in.
Yet with Australian rugby on a (relative, conservative, let’s not crack open the ’74 Grange Hermitage just yet) high after a six-point Test victory over South Africa in Brisbane (but in the current climate, you take what you get and roll about in it) as my carpenter granddad would say, “to buggery with these people, what have they ever done?”
And should Cooper keep up the form from Saturday night – and who knows if he can reprise that rock and roll stuff from 2011 when Queensland won the Super Rugby competition – he might even turn a few of his haters into love-you-long-timers.
Because version 4.1 of Cooper (or whatever the latest release is) still has that point of difference that can break down well-drilled defences. He’s not as funky and scatty as Carlos Spencer, not as poised as Daniel Carter (who is?), and not as high-octane as Cooper version 1 with a mullet.
But it seems now that the man, at 28, owns a semblance of control. He’s dialled back the really funky stuff and is playing as one part of the team, as the lynchpin. And like David Warner marrying a defensive tenet with his natural urge to go all-out at everything, he was one of Australia’s best afield on Saturday night in Brisbane.
Michael Cheika’s confidence in the man has instilled confidence in him. For some, it’s all they need. A little love.
OK, steady on. He’s not Mark Ella or Stephen Larkham redux, and the new dawn of Australian rugby isn’t to bust out of his backside. But outside the World Cup romp against Uruguay, it was one of the man’s best games in gold. And with a forward pack defensively staunch and strong at set piece, he was given a platform to do his thing. And his side were worthy victors 23-17 in a pretty good game of Test match rugby.
Granted the Springboks didn’t offer a lot more than kicking it to the best man under the high ball in the world. And their attack led more to the counter variety than sweeping backline plays with multiple runners and options and speed men on the fly. And while fullback Johan Goosen has one of the great boots in world rugby – the Gilbert shoots off his laces like a mortar round from one of those T-shirt guns that killed Ned Flanders’ wife Maude – it doesn’t necessarily mean he has to use it.
And Bryan Habana is still on the wing. He’s been playing professional since US forces captured Saddam Hussein, you can learn of it on Google.
Yet the Wallabies have the same … would you call it malaise? According to a quick poll of the dozen leather-heads on my WhatsApp chat, Australian rugby suffers from the same surfeit of sentimentality to the fine deeds by men past their use-by. Matt Giteau and Adam Ashley-Cooper have done super things. But in terms of building for a World Cup and blooding new bloods, surely you want more Reece Hodge and less Drew Mitchell.
So, what can be gleaned from the Wallabies’ six-point win on a Suncorp surface made greasy by a two-hour storm pre-match? Hard to say. Though winners are grinners, as they say. They’d have been grinning pre-match by simple dint of not playing the All Blacks. To be continually measured against – and summarily flogged by – those people does little for confidence.
But credit to the Wallabies. Despite losing the previous six Tests, they maintained their attacking intent. Cooper was on the big screen pre-match telling fans the Wallabies don’t ever promise they’ll win a Test. But they do promise to do their very best, and play the rugby they like to play. The Australian way – have a go, even if you’re a mug, you mug.
Elsewhere Cooper’s pivot partner Bernard Foley kicked five-from-five, scored a tidy game-breaking try and threw an intercept pass to Adrian Strauss with all of Australia baying for the ball out wide. So, it was a slightly mixed night.
In addition to Strauss, something of an outlier, there was actually plenty to like about a few of the Springboks. Eben Etzebeth is a big hard-charger. Elton Jantjies has touches of class. And hooker Bongi Mbonambi is the size of a Kombi. And when all these people ran the ball in the Wallabies half they threatened. Another 10 minutes of running rugby and they might’ve broken through.
But there’s the rub. They didn’t do it often enough in the allotted period. In their own 22 it was only ever boot it out. Between 22 and half it was crash ball and bomb it high (to Israel Folau, who owns the air like Gina Rinehart owns earth. In the Wallabies half they tried a combination of all those things. So there was variety, per se. But against a committed Wallabies D-line, there was no way through. They didn’t stretch Australia on the fringes nor bang at them up the guts. Their game plan was … not sure. Do your best.
Yet the Wallabies didn’t flog the Springboks because the teams are actually quite close in terms of skill level. And defences are very well drilled. And penalties are given away to test referees’ resolve.
But Australia, to coin a relatively-recent bit of pundit-speak “played all the rugby”. The Boks played some, too, but were largely content to pressure and counter and wait for things to happen. And continually testing the aerial excellence of Folau was madness and one reason they lost. Cooper was another.
