Wallabies veteran Michael Hooper has no immediate desire to reclaim the captaincy on Australia’s spring tour, admitting he was not “completely cured” of some of the mindset issues that saw him withdraw from the Rugby Championship before its opening whistle.
Hooper is poised to play his first Test since the Wallabies 2-1 series loss to England in July over the next few weeks as Australia embark on a difficult five-match tour of Europe that begins against Scotland in Edinburgh this weekend.
Speaking from Saint Etienne in France, where the Wallabies will be based during the pool phase of next year’s Rugby World Cup, Hooper said his decision to walk away from the team and seek help for his mental health was the result of a build-up of factors, so too the realities of a near-decade long stint in international rugby.
“I’d been playing the game for a long time, had some great changes in my life happen this year and I think there was a lot of things running through my head that sort of showed up in Argentina,” Hooper said.
“And Argentina wasn’t the place where I needed or was able to sort those things out. I wanted to be around family, I wanted to be in a place that I could put the time in to those things I needed to put in. And that doesn’t mean that I’m sitting here now completely cured.
“It’s not like that at all, it’s just that at that point in time I needed to be somewhere else and that wasn’t Argentina. I know that’s quite vague but I’m still getting my head around it. It’s not that long ago but I’m feeling at a place now where I’m keen to be here.”
While Hooper said his body was fine, he reinforced the belief that with his mind not in the right place to contest the brutal physical arena of international rugby, he would have been doing his teammates a disservice by playing.
Still, Hooper says he returned home to Australia with a desire to get back as soon as he could, only to discover that he would need more time than he had perhaps budgeted, and thus played no part in Australia’s disappointing 2-4 Rugby Championship campaign.
“Initially, from getting home, I started, as you know, as you do, as an athlete or anyone you start putting in a plan to get back, and that didn’t quite work for me,” he told reporters. “Initially, I [said] I want to be back by this time. If you can imagine our lives are so regimented by games and tournaments and the next thing that comes up, so it’s really easy to put a plan in and my life’s been dictated a lot by schedule. And okay, there’s this tournament coming up, or we’ve got the Bledisloe here or a three-game series there or a spring tour there.
“And putting that, not pressure on myself, but that expectation on myself that I would be right by a certain point didn’t work.”
Hooper said he had received great support from everyone at Rugby Australia, with coach Dave Rennie and others checking in on his progress over the past few months but with no pressure to steer him toward towards a potential return date.
The veteran openside flanker began his steady return with the Waratahs’ Wallabies squad members in Sydney, before giving himself the green light for selection for the spring tour.
But it is without the “C” next to his name, something he has had since the final Bledisloe of 2017, with veteran prop James Slipper to lead the team in Europe just as he had done through the Rugby Championship.
“He supported me for a long time and he was an amazing person throughout my whole captaincy; he’s got my utmost support in however he needs,” Hooper said of Slipper. “What he’s said to me is he wants me to come back and enjoy my rugby and compete and he understands that what’s good for the team is me going well.
“First and foremost, mentally and physically, but secondly, if I can be in a good space with those two things, then I’m probably going to be playing pretty good rugby and he’s happy with that.
“You’ve asked about going forward, what I’ve learnt and what I’ve mentioned earlier is that it’s a long way away. And we’re talking about this tour and this tour, for me, selfishly, is getting back on the park and earning my way back into the team and getting to a good standard of football.
“And on the team side of things, it’s that I do have a wealth of experience in this outfit, and I want to be able pass that on to younger players and also be an assistance to the guys like Slips and Allan [Alaalatoa] and Dave [Rennie] and the coaching staff.”
With Hooper absent through the Rugby Championship, the Wallabies used both Fraser McReight and Pete Samu in the No. 7 jersey, the latter impressing in both defeats by the All Blacks.
It has given Rennie the luxury of easing Hooper back into Test rugby via the bench should the Wallabies coach wish, though the flanker’s 121 Tests worth of experience will be a huge asset to the team over the next few weeks and into next year when the game’s showpiece event may still prove the four-time John Eales Medallist’s international swansong.
“The World Cup is certainly a great cherry but why I play is I love competing. I love being part of this; it’s not a forever thing and I watched the games and there were some things I missed about being in the environment and they were about competing.
“I missed watching the games and being out there and being with the team and representing and that stuff, so that was the lure to get back to and try and realise my potential in the game.”