Quade Cooper should move south to revive Test career: Stephen Larkham

Quade Cooper needs to leave Queensland and join another Super Rugby franchise, Wallabies assistant coach Steve Larkham says.

Quade Cooper in action for his Brisbane club side

Playing club football is doing nothing for Quade Cooper’s aspirations of returning to the Australian team and, if he is serious about reviving his Test career, he needs to leave Queensland and join another Super Rugby franchise, Wallabies assistant coach Steve Larkham said yesterday.

A statement from Brad Thorn and the QRU yesterday formally closed the door on Cooper’s long career with the Queensland Reds. It simply read: “If there was an opportunity for Quade at another Super Rugby club, we wouldn’t stand in his way.”

Effectively, rugby officials have called Cooper’s bluff. He has said all along that he is playing for Souths in Brisbane Premier Rugby with the intention of making his way back initially into the Reds and from there into the Australian team and hopefully a third World Cup in 2019. But Larkham indicated that being selected for Australia from club football — the route used by Tim Horan and Phil Kearns when they were first chosen for the Wallabies — was now almost extinct.

“I wouldn’t say it is out of the picture, but at the moment we’re looking at Super Rugby players. We’re going through a pretty extensive program at the moment reviewing all Super Rugby players in Australia because we’re hoping not to miss anyone, but we’re not looking further than that.

“Obviously anomalies come up from time to time, year to year, but that’s not happening at the moment.

“I know he was holding out hope for the Reds. I know he enjoys living in Brisbane and certainly he has a strong commitment to his club up there but now that Brad has told him — told everyone — that he is not on the radar there, I think realistically Quade should start looking for some alternatives.”

He does not have to look far for alternatives. Both the Rebels and the Brumbies have approached him to come south.

His long-time halves partner, Will Genia — who himself said last year he would play for no one else but Queensland but nonetheless has completely reinvented himself in Melbourne — has phoned Cooper to make a personal appeal.

Certainly there must be a temptation within Rugby Australia — which, with the QRU, continues to pay instalments of his $650,000 contract — to explore whether there are legal ways of forcing him to move to another franchise, but the widespread belief is that, for this to work, Cooper needs to do this of his own accord.

Larkham insisted there was genuine interest in him by the Australian selectors. At present, the only back-ups to Bernard Foley at five-eighth — Kurtley Beale and Reece Hodge — are both likely to be employed in other positions in the Wallabies backline.

“Which makes it difficult, not to have a proper fly-half on the bench,” said Larkham. “And, yeah, if you look at his (Cooper’s) contribution to the team on the field, there is no doubt he is good enough to play for Australia and to make an impact at that level.

“I know the character of the guy. I think he’d keep himself in really good condition and if he had to play Super Rugby this weekend, he’d be ready for it.”

The Reds flew out for Tokyo yesterday, where they will play the Sunwolves on Saturday, a match that could see them draw level on five wins with the pacesetting Waratahs.

All indications are that Jono Lance will regain the five-eighth spot after missing the Reds’ last match because of concussion, although so well did Hamish Stewart perform in his absence that Thorn looks set to reward him with a start at fullback.

Lance acknowledged that this was very much a “banana skin” game for the Reds, even if the Sunwolves are yet to win a match this year.

“They’ve been really building these past few weeks,” he said. “They’re a different beast at home and that’s something we’ve been thinking about.”

At season’s end, Lance will head to Worcester but he said the five-eighth position was in good hands with Stewart. “I was excited by how Hamish went against the Lions. He’s doing things I wasn’t doing when I was 19.”