Tom Hooper on Wales loss: 'That'll fuel me for the rest of my career'

Young flanker Tom Hooper is embracing the pain of the Wallabies’ woeful World Cup performance, saying he will use it as fuel for the future.

The 22-year-old was part of the youth brigade ushered in by coach Eddie Jones, but historic losses to Wales and Fiji have left former players and fans fearing for the youngsters’ mental health.

The Australians face Portugal in their final pool match in Saint-Etienne on Sunday (Monday AEST) and, barring a miracle in Fiji’s remaining two games, will be heading home from France before the quarter-finals for the first time.

If Fiji beat Georgia with a bonus point in their match on Saturday, the Wallabies are out.

Hooper said the entire squad was hurting after their record 40-6 loss to Wales last round which effectively ended their campaign, but it wasn’t something he would try to forget.

“I don’t think I’ll ever move on from it, but I think that’s a good thing,” said Hooper, who grew up in Bathurst before joining the Brumbies.

“The night we had, it pulled on the heartstrings a bit, it hurt a lot, but that’s something that’ll fuel me for the rest of my career.

“I’m sure I’m speaking on behalf of a lot of the young blokes – it’s a night that we have to remember because we don’t want to feel that again.”

Fixture

Rugby World Cup

Australia

34 - 14

Full-time

Portugal

All Stats and Data

Hooper was already thinking about the “hard yakka” ahead and had messaged his younger brother Lachie, who is also at the Brumbies, to warn him about their off-season training plans in Canberra.

Hooper again defended coach Eddie Jones, who has been in the firing line for his selection, tactics and his link to the Japan national coaching job.

He said Jones had done his best to help the team bounce back from the Wales wipe-out.

“Same old Eddie, he’s always cracking jokes with the guys and making sure spirits are high, and he had some really, really encouraging words for us on the night after and that’ll stay in house.

“He’s a great mentor and he made sure the boys were all right.

“You see from his media encounters, even from the way he coaches he’s always looking after us, number one – to the point where he’ll sometimes fall on the sword for us … a man that’s willing to do that for your team is a pretty special man.”

With the Wallabies team named on Friday, Lalakai Foketi is set to make up a new centre pairing with Izaia Perese.

Foketi said world No.16 Portugal, who drew with Georgia in their last match, would be far from easy-beats.

They led an Australia A team at halftime in a World Cup warm-up match before falling 30-17.

“We’ve watched a bit of footage of that game, Australia A versus Portugal,” Foketi said.

“They’re a really good sevens side and we expect them to throw the ball around.

“We’ve got to be physical but we’ve missed a few opportunities in this World Cup to expose teams out wide and we’ve spoken about that and if there’s opportunity there we’re not going to be afraid to definitely pull the trigger.

“It could potentially be our last week so we want show the type of footy that we’ve wanted to play all year.

“We want to show Australia and our supporters that we do care and and we want to leave a massive performance out there and come away with a win.”