How Wallabies learned if they had got the World Cup call-up
For Wallabies players waiting for the phone to ring the wait was almost unbearable. Then came the pranks.
Rugby
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rugby. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Although he was a certainty to be picked for the World Cup, the Wallabies captain Michael Hooper was like everyone else hoping to make the squad, left anxiously waiting for the call confirming he was off to Japan.
He didn’t know who it would come from, only that it would be a former Wallaby who had played in a World Cup final before, a tradition head coach Michael Cheika started four years ago as part of a way to connect past and present Wallabies.
Hooper finally got a call from his good friend Rob Horne, who retired from rugby at 28 when his arm was paralysed in a tackle.
Horne roomed with Hooper at the last World Cup but didn’t play in the final because he hurt his shoulder in a pool game and was sent home early, so Hooper was sure he wasn’t the one to deliver the news so decided to end the call abruptly.
Stream the Rugby World Cup 2019 on KAYO SPORTS. Every match Live & On-Demand on your TV, computer, mobile or tablet. Get your 14 day free trial >
“I said ‘mate, I’m trying to have dinner here’ because I just thought he was calling for a catch up to sort of say how are going so I sort of cut him a bit short,” Hooper said.
“But then he said ‘actually I’ve got something to tell you so I thought I’d hang on for that and so it was pretty good news and a funny conversation.
“To hear it from one of my great, great mates was awesome.”
Hooper wasn’t the only Wallaby caught out after getting a call from a mate. Cheika deliberately staggered the times that each of the selected players was given the news to keep them guessing.
Adam Ashley-Cooper was at a birthing clinic with his wife when Matt Giteau rang him so he didn’t pick up and didn’t return the call until later that night.
They spoke for almost 20 minutes with Ashley-Cooper telling his former teammate he didn’t think he’d made the team because no-one had called him, until Giteau finally broke the news.
“We were talking for ages before he told me and he said ‘I thought I’d just make you sweat mate, but congratulations,” Ashley-Cooper said.
“It was about 9 o’clock at night and everyone else had got their calls later on that afternoon so I’m thinking it’s no good, obviously.”
Giteau also got to break the news to Jordan Petaia, the youngest member of the squad, while Kurtley Beale got a call from David Campese, David Pocock heard from Rod McCall, Tim Horan contacted James O’Connor and Lote Tuqiri called Marika Koroibete from Samoa to tell him he was chosen.
The job of telling the players who didn’t make the squad was left to Cheika so no-one wanted to see his name pop up on their phone.
In 2015, Cheika called Christian Lealiifano to tell him he’d missed out.
Late on Tuesday night, Cheika called him again and Lealiifano, who has fought his way back into the Test team after beating cancer, feared the worst only to be told by Cheika he was making one exception to his rule and was calling to say he was in the squad.
“I know it’s a small thing but you want to remember the day you got told you are going to play your first Test,” Cheika said. “And you want to remember the day that you got selected for the World Cup.”
Originally published as How Wallabies learned if they had got the World Cup call-up
Suaalii talks tears, money and 4am workouts
Rugby’s $5 million man, cross-code superstar Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has been big news since he was 14-years old, now Jamie Pandaram reveals the complex character behind the headlines.
Reds primed for Super season
The Reds don’t want to waste their good work on a successful pre-season tour of the United Kingdom when they kick-off their Super Rugby Pacific season later this month.