Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper should be replaced, writes Julian Linden

Tim Paine took on the Aussie cricket captaincy at a time of crisis and made his side the world’s best — there’s a player with similar traits who should be Wallabies skipper, not Michael Hooper.

Has Michael Hooper’s time as Wallabies captain run out?

The most important decision Dave Rennie faces over the Summer break is who should skipper the Wallabies next season and through to the next World Cup.

The elephant in the room is that Michael Hooper needs to be relieved of the captaincy as soon as the Tri-Nations championship ends, as much for his own sake as the team’s.

It’s not Hooper’s fault the Wallabies can’t string two good performances together but as captain he has to a lot of the responsibility for the catastrophic results since he took over.

His record as captain stinks — just 20 wins from 51 Tests in charge — the worst strike-rate of any Wallabies skipper since the game went professional, and at 29 he would be better served focusing on his own game.

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There are some mitigating circumstances — most obviously that the Wallabies just don’t have the cattle — but if the definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, then Rennie would have to be nuts not to give someone else a shot.

His dilemma is there’s no obvious replacement for Hooper, who remains one of the few automatic selections in the side, but it’s time he rolled the dice.

If he needs any inspiration he only needs to look at the Australian cricket team who gambled on Tim Paine taking over from Steve Smith.

A left-field choice at the time, Paine’s inspired appointment has transformed the team.

Utility back Matt Toomua is rugby’s closest version to Paine.

Michael Hooper’s decision-making was questioned after Australia’s draw with Argentina.

A deep thinker and master tactician, he would cope with the mixed responsibilities both on and off the field – but he’s almost two years older than Hooper and starting to succumb to injuries so is no guarantee of getting to the 2023 World Cup.

If Rennie wanted to punt on someone younger, he would do far worse than to consider Harry Wilson.

The Queensland backrower is still just finding his feet at Test level but he’s already shown he’s got all the makings of a long time Wallaby and his appointment would be a powerful endorsement to the new generation of players coming through that they are at the heart of Rennie’s plans.

Rennie has already shown he isn’t frightened to throw the youngsters into the deep end – and he also won’t hesitate to drop anyone that doesn’t meet his expectations.

The only time he baulked was when it came to choosing his captain.

Michael Hooper argues a point during Saturday night’s draw.

He thought long and hard about it — waiting until the Wallabies were already in camp before opting to stick with Hooper — but with just one win from five matches since he took over, it’s now a matter of when, not if he picks a new captain.

No one has ever questioned Hooper’s commitment to the Wallabies jersey but he has repeatedly come under scrutiny for blundering on big decisions.

A natural aggressor – he turned down two kickable penalties to chase tries that never came when Australia lost 9-6 to Wales in 2018.

Then at last year’s World Cup in Japan, Hooper pointed to the sticks and took the three points when Australia were four behind and needed a try to go ahead in the decisive pool game against the Welsh.

On Saturday against Argentina, Hooper turned down several opportunities to kick for goal in the Wallabies’ 15-15 draw with the Pumas even though Reece Hodge had landed his first attempts, only to miss his sixth right at the death that would have won the game for Australia.

Sitting next to Hooper at the post match press conference, Rennie gave the first hint that something was amiss when he questioned why the Wallabies didn’t stick to the agreed game plan after opening up a 15-6 lead.

“Yeah, disappointing,” Rennie said. “We were constantly passing messages down.”

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Originally published as Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper should be replaced, writes Julian Linden