Sometimes he only appeared as a golden blur – burrowing low into contact, pilfering enemy ball from a pile of fallen players, burying a bigger man in a driving tackle. Then he would burst into view, breaking the line and bringing the crowd to their feet, bobbing up in support of a teammate, or peeling off a tangle of limbs to lunge across the line and score.
Typically where he most needed to be, whether that was as the last line of defence when all ranks were broken or a bolt of inspiration when only confusion and chaos reigned. Too often it has been fronting the public after another disappointing defeat, confronting dark truths front on. That’s when we truly saw him, looking rugby fans in the eyes, vowing to do better.
Michael Hooper embodies all the traits Australians love in their heroes. He is humble at heart but extraordinary by nature, a tireless competitor on field and dignified statesman off it, a player who inspires teammates and fans, an opponent feared and respected, a servant of his country – and the game. Like Allan Border, his destiny was to be the best Australian player in beaten sides. And Hooper’s Wallabies sides lost more than they won. But he himself was rarely beaten. Until last week.
After 12 years and 125 Tests as a Wallaby (more than half of them as captain), the 31-year-old was axed from Australia’s squad for the 2023 World Cup in France next month. Coach Eddie Jones wants to transition a young team to a new era. To embrace that future he has let go of the past and there is no greater emblem for it, and its struggles, than Hooper.
For many, it will come as a relief – after 24 years without a World Cup and 22 without a Bledisloe Cup, Australian rugby desperately needs a youth-led reboot. Now, the start of a five-year World Cup cycle culminating in a home tournament in 2027, is the time to deliver change – and revolution. But it will hurt to farewell “Hoops”.
Hooper has been Australian rugby’s golden boy since 2012 when he burst on to the scene as a lightning-fast flanker from Sydney’s northern beaches. Within two years, at 22, he was the youngest Wallabies captain in half a century. Back then it was him at the front of the youth-led reboot – a tousle-haired surfer kid so relaxed he rolled up to his first press conference on a skateboard.
But the golden boy soon became the battered face of a code in crisis. Rugby league, football and Australian rules were winning the fight for recruitment, TV ratings, sponsor cash and popular support. Hooper’s eyes took the same low road as Border’s, turning from water to stone with every losing campaign.
But courageous pursuit of victory against rational odds has long stirred something deep in Australian hearts. Hooper’s Test debut had been a humiliating loss to Scotland on a muddy field outside Newcastle. His first start a 22-0 Bledisloe blackout at Eden Park.
For all the personal accolades – fastest player to 50 caps, youngest man to play 100 Tests, longest serving Wallabies captain – Hooper is loved most as a team talisman. He gave up 75% of his salary to keep rugby afloat in the pandemic and despite playing the most dangerous position on the field, was rarely injured and never cowed. He even met the haka with a glint.
Until he didn’t. Hooper’s final Test came this July, a 43-12 shellacking by South Africa. There, for the first time, he looked off the pace. There had been signs of stress fractures the season prior when he left Argentina on the eve of a Test citing “mindset issues”. But, of course, he fought his way back.
And he might again – if injuries hit, Hooper’s wisdom could yet be a boon to a callow squad and rookie Wallabies skipper Will Skelton. If not, the rich twilight circuit in Japanese rugby or an Olympics tilt with the Sevens side are pre-retirement options. But on the world stage, it seems likely that golden blur is now just a memory.
Hooper’s brand of soft diplomacy would have been preferable to Jones’s salty scorched-earth dummy spit at media when the World Cup squad flew out last week. Instead, Hooper was denied the fond farewells he was due. In his final game for the Waratahs, after 162 games, NSW were beaten by the team running dead-last. Even the calf injury that cost him a Test sendoff at home, was superseded by Sam Kerr’s.
Hooper copped it sweet. “I love competing, I love being part of a team, I love representing,” he reflected after returning from a mental health break last year. “But it’s not a forever thing.” Now Australian rugby moves on and a new era begins. But the hope Hooper embodied in so many for so long will endure. The World Cup is an uphill battle, but he showed the way.
