Free spirit Cooper will be missed
He was the player Kiwi fans loved to hate but he deserved respect for what he could do with the ball
Quade Cooper’s international career is almost certainly over and so, it seems, is his Super Rugby career — gone by the hand of Brad Thorn, a one-time adversary and now his coach at the Reds.
It’s probably not a great surprise — the first-five, the self-styled public enemy No 1 of New Zealand in 2011 before he bowed out, injured, from the World Cup that year — is 29 and has played his best rugby.
But there should also be regret that he has been relegated to Brisbane club rugby — his next move no doubt a search for an off-shore club.
Cooper is a free spirit and in this age of constant messages from coaches’ box to pitch, of rush defences and percentage plays, the game needs more of those.
At his best, and mostly beside his great mate and halfback Will Genia, Cooper made up one of the greatest attacking (the distinction is important) double-acts Australian rugby has seen, one which helped the Reds to the Super Rugby title six years ago against a Crusaders team featuring one B Thorn.
If Genia was the fireworks fuse, Cooper provided the bang; his knack at seeing and putting players into space via pass or kick was something the Wallabies haven’t found since.
Current Wallabies No 10 Bernard Foley is a far better defender and probably more consistent player, but the Waratahs man doesn’t come close to the flair Cooper possessed.
The last of Cooper’s 70 tests was five months ago against Italy. A recall to Michael Cheika’s team seems unlikely. Last year, Cheika gambled on the idea of playing Cooper at firstfive and Foley at second-five, but that was quickly abandoned, and now so has Cooper.
The man born in Auckland and raised in Tokoroa before his move to Australia as a teenager has often had an awkward relationship with the New Zealand rugby public, a result mainly of what was considered a cheap shot on a prone Richie McCaw during the All Blacks’ Bledisloe Cup defeat in Hong Kong in 2011 for which he never apologised.
His over-the-top victory celebrations in McCaw’s face when the referee blew the final whistle in that test was the final straw for many, but probably hidden amid the vitriol and jeers Cooper received on his arrival for the World Cup here later that year was respect for a player who always had the ability to turn a test his team’s way.
A lesser player would never have received the attention. He had his onfield flaws, no doubt about it — he rarely defended in the front line off a set piece, for instance — but he could do things with the ball that many couldn’t and now that he faces an uncertain future, that at least should be celebrated.