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Fans think Michael Hooper's desperate performance has fended off wannabe-Wallaby back rowers

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

The lifeless Waratahs sprung to life last night at the SCG racing to a 38-0 lead after 35-minutes to bury the Queensland Reds early in a heap of misery.

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The underperforming Tahs had many question marks, none as big as whether Michael Hooper would be able to retain his Wallabies captaincy and number 7 jersey under Dave Rennie with the impressive form of the other loose forwards in the competition.

The Reds had Super Rugby AU’s hottest back row, with Liam Wright, Fraser McReight and Harry Wilson all putting their hands up to become Wallaby debutants this season.

Wright and McReight were first and second respectively in the competition in turnovers won, and had embarrassed the Waratahs back row earlier this season at Suncorp.

The Reds trio won the turnover battle 4-0 in Brisbane over Hooper and his fellow Waratahs loose forwards in a 32-26 Queensland victory.

However, it was an inspired performance by Michael Hooper last night to lead his side to dominant victory over the Reds.

Fans noticed just how visibly happy the Wallabies captain was and how much it meant to the Waratahs to see Hooper have such influence in the game, rushing to support the captain after securing a turnover.

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The Wallaby captain also had an inspiring moment to chase down Reds centre Hunter Paisami to save his side a try on the stroke of halftime, before getting up for a second effort to disrupt the halfback and force an error.

https://twitter.com/AdrianShuter/status/1292050397406720001

Hooper’s performance will boost his stock for the time being but even in a losing side his opposite Liam Wright did himself no harm.

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Aside from his industrious work around the park winning three turnovers, Wright towers over Hooper in height and was the Reds top line out option with five takes. He also completed 9/9 tackles at a 100% completion rate.

A major criticism of the Pocock-Hooper duel selection by the Wallabies in recent years is it robbed them of a legitimate back row line out option, with Hooper used in a makeshift fashion towards the front.

In all areas, Wright has played statically better than Hooper with a tackle completion of 94% versus Hooper’s 87%, while making dominant hits at higher rate 22% versus 20%.

The Reds open side has a competition leading 12 turnovers won compared to Hooper’s 6, primarily due to also being a threat at line out time where he has won 5 steals.

Wright is the Reds top line out target, with the third most takes in the competition.

Hooper may have won the battle this time but time will tell whether he has lost the war for the Wallabies number 7 jersey.

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fl 21 minutes ago
‘Props are awesome…so why don’t they win prizes?’

“The reason most props don’t last the whole game is that they expend proportionally more effort than players outside the front row. Should they be penalised for that?”

No, they don’t last the whole game because they are less fit than players outside the front row. I’d be interested to know if you’d apply this logic to other positions; do PSDT and Itoje regularly last longer than other players in their positions because they put in less effort?

None of this is about “penalising” props, its about being realistic about their impact on a game.


“While scrums are a small part of the game in terms of time spent in them, they have disproportionate impact. Dominant scrums win games; feeble ones lose them.”

Strength at the breakdown wins games. Good kicking wins games. Good handling wins games. Strong defence wins games. Good lineouts win games. Ultimately, I think that of all these things, the scrum is probably the least important, because it demonstrably doesn’t correlate very well with winning games. I don’t think Rugbypass will allow me to link articles, but if you google “HG Rugby Crowning the Best Scrum in Club Rugby” you’ll get a pretty convincing analysis that ranks Toulouse and Bordeaux outside of the 10 best club sides in the scrum - and ranks Leinster outside of the top 30.


“Or there’s Joe Marler’s epic performance in the Bristol v Quins 2021 Premiership Semi-Final, in which he finally left the pitch 15 minutes into extra time having signed off with a try saving tackle.”

Yeah - that’s a good example actually, but it kind of disproves your point. Marler played 95 minutes, which is unheard of for a prop.


“Maybe we need a dedicated Hall of Fame with entry only for props, and voted for only by props.”

Well we have the World Rugby XV of the year. Its only been going for a few years, but in time it’ll be a pretty good record of who are perceived as best props - although the lack of interest most people have in scrums means that perception of who the best props are doesn’t always match reality (e.g. Tadgh Furlong was great in 2018 - but was he really the best tighthead in the world in 2021, 2022, & 2023?).

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