Michael Hooper reveals how Wallabies can avoid series whitewash against British & Irish Lions
Former Wallabies captain Michael Hooper (inset) and Australia's dejected players after their loss to the British & Irish Lions in Melbourne.
Former Wallabies captain and openside flanker Michael Hooper believes Australia showed signs of blossoming into a dangerous outfit despite losing their series against the British and Irish Lions at the weekend.
After suffering a 27-19 defeat in the first Test at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, the Wallabies were beaten 29-26 by the famous touring side at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last weekend.
That means the Wallabies will be playing for pride and trying to avoid a humiliating 3-0 series defeat when the sides meet again for the final time at Sydney’s Accor Stadium on Saturday.
Hooper knows exactly what it feels like to lose a Test series to the Lions as he represented the Wallabies in all three encounters against the tourists in 2013.
Although the Wallabies lost this year’s series in agonising fashion courtesy of Hugo Keenan’s late try in Melbourne, Hooper saw plenty of positive signs for Joe Schmidt’s troops in that clash.
‘They were proper in all facets’
“I thought they were as good as any team could be on the weekend for that first 40 minutes,” he said. “They were proper in all facets, physicality. The only probably judgment on them would be letting some tries in a bit easily.
“Obviously the Lions got into the 22 and managed to take away points.
“But aside from that, they were playing a great style of footy, powerful, mixing it up with the backs, back-stepping up, everything like that.
“Their ability to change that from the week before was awesome.”
Australians were upset when referee Andrea Piardi did not penalise Jac Morgan for his much-talked-about clear-out on Wallabies flanker Carlo Tizzano at a ruck, in the build-up to Keenan’s match-winning try for the Lions in Melbourne, in that game’s dying moments.
Hooper feels that despite the game’s controversial ending, Hooper feels the Wallabies and Lions deserve credit for dishing up an outstanding encounter.
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“It is what it is,” Hooper admitted. “I don’t think people are skirting around the fact that it was just a great Test match…a game’s never on one decision.
The amount of decisions that [Andrea] Piardi had to make across that game, and I thought he was a very good ref, performed very well for that game.
‘I’m not upset about it’
“But everything’s highlighted on that last moment, which is sometimes unfair. I’m not upset about it, because that’s kind of the game.”
After that defeat, Hooper believes the experience of current Wallabies skipper Harry Wilson will become even more important to motivate the side ahead of Saturday’s finale in Sydney.
“I don’t think he has to rally the troops too much,” he said. “I hope that he’s actually pushing to allow the players time just to come to terms with that game because that would have hurt them.
“They’d be angry, and there’d be all these different types of emotions.
“Just getting to a point where they can accept that and then turn it around, that’s what we saw on the weekend, the second game of the series. It was a mental change that brought them, with a couple of extra players, that brought them into that contest. So they need the same thing next week.
“I don’t think as a player you see the amount that we see, now being on the outside. You’re preparing for the match, you’re seeing the lead-up matches, but you’re viewing it very analytically.
“You’re removed from the energy that we see and the Lions fans walking around everywhere. You see it on the bus going to training or whatever, but you’re kind of removed. I think there’s no way in dancing around the fact that that would have been a huge emotional toll for the players.
“They got up to that level, and it would feel like it would be stolen from them, in a way. It’s more on the results that take their toll on you. So that’s why I say you’ve got to give it time just to breathe and get back up and get back on the horse.”