The selfish actions of Israel Folau and Quade Cooper are hurting their teams, writes Andrew Slack

HOWEVER you feel about free speech, inclusion or exclusion, one thing is clear: the actions of Israel Folau and Quade Cooper are selfish and hurt their teams, writes former Wallaby Andrew Slack.

Israel Folau has courted controversy with his anti-gay stance.

ISRAEL Folau and Quade Cooper perhaps should have played tennis.

Play within the rules and you don’t have to give two hoots about what anybody else does or how they do it. Win more games than your opponent and you can pretty well behave how you wish.

Team games like rugby are different.

Every action you take on the field, and occasionally off the field, can influence how your team performs and whether its potential can be realised.

Happier times: Israel Folau (R) and Quade Cooper share a moment after a match.

When you sign up (figuratively) for any team game, your responsibility to maximise your input as best you can should be a given.

In the professional environment, when you sign up (literally), it seems you don’t really have to make that commitment.

Whatever legal documents Folau and Cooper have with Rugby Australia, there must not be any clauses which stipulate their individual actions and behaviour have to be geared towards ensuring their national and provincial sides achieve the best results they can.

If there is such a clause, it is not written clearly enough for agreement to be reached by all parties.

For future reference, it might be worth finding some brilliant legal mind that can put together one such clause that lacks any ambiguity.

Cooper’s situation is slightly less complicated than Folau’s.

Quade Cooper playing for Wests RC.

He’s keeping a small percentage of rugby fans deliriously happy by playing for Souths in the Brisbane club competition, and while I’m not really looking forward to the barbs I’ll receive from friends and former clubmates at the Magpies for saying this, it doesn’t equate to best value for money for his employers at the QRU and RA.

The Wallabies lack of depth at flyhalf means Cooper should be in the mix for squad selection.

However, it’s been made clear that only players involved in Super Rugby are likely to be considered, so arguably one of the country’s best No.10s is out of contention.

It seems both the Rebels and the Brumbies would welcome Cooper and yet, at this stage, he is opting for the less challenging play for pay he’s getting in club rugby.

Quade Cooper could better serve Australian rugby by pushing for Wallabies selection.

As part of the team, it is coach Brad Thorn’s responsibility to do what is best for the Reds. He believes that means excluding Cooper.

As a potential Wallaby selection and paid employee, it is Cooper’s responsibility to help Michael Cheika assemble his strongest squad. That may or may not include him, but the only way to find out is by playing the Super Rugby that has now been made available.

By accepting an offer from Canberra or Melbourne, Cooper could dilute any belief that his rugby career has been all about him.

Unlike Cooper, there is no doubt about Folau’s Wallaby selection. If he’s not the first man picked … forget that. He will be the first man picked.

Israel Folau will be the first Wallaby picked, despite his recent controversies.

Nevertheless, he is now bringing with him a lot of baggage, which regardless of where one sits on all the attendant issues of free speech, bigotry, inclusion, exclusion and so on, it is baggage that his teammates, like it or not, are forced to carry.

Part of being a team means lightening the load for others. Folau is not doing that and it’s not fair.

His reasons, as he sees them, might be high and mighty, but there can be no debate about the fact they are selfish.

Calling him a “religious lunatic”, as former Wallaby Clyde Rathbone did, is unhelpful to the wider debate but I do think Folau could take a lesson from an unlikely source.

Jarryd Hayne’s former coach at the San Francisco 49ers, Jim Tomsula, is a practising Christian.

His view on such matters?

“God takes care of everything,” he says. “I don’t give religion lessons.”

Originally published as The selfish actions of Israel Folau and Quade Cooper are hurting their teams, writes Andrew Slack