Just where does Quade Cooper’s remarkable return to Test rugby after three years in the wilderness rate with the great comebacks by Wallabies?
It’s certainly a Top 10 entry with a bullet. Stellar comebacks can be defined by beating a major injury, a rousing return from a slump, late-blooming class, a Freddy Fill-In recall or even outlasting a World War in the case of indomitable Queensland forward Graham Cooke.
Click here to get your tickets for the eToro Rugby Championship
Cooper’s comeback is astonishing because he was basically consigned to the scrapheap by three coaches, Robbie Deans, Michael Cheika and Brad Thorn.
It takes a special type of self-belief to rise above being shunned and keep forging ahead with a mindset of getting better, fitter and more rounded as a person.
At 33, Cooper won’t be the oldest flyhalf the Wallabies have run with in the professional era. David Knox played his final Test at 34 on the 1997 tour of Argentina.
Let’s take a look at a six-pack of great Wallabies’ comeback stories and see where you rate Cooper’s comeback. Of course, it all gets defined afresh by how he performs against South Africa at Cbus Super Stadium on Sunday night on the Gold Coast.
1 JAMES O’CONNOR
Still, the No.1 comeback of the modern era for the Wallabies. O’Connor was down and almost out, mentally and physically, before he pulled himself back.
There was a point where no Australian Super Rugby side would sign him because he was damaged goods and just too much trouble.
He transformed his attitude, his body and his mindset to become a team-orientated player.
His 11-Test run, playing at the 2019 World Cup and championship-winning form for the Queensland Reds since his return to Australian rugby in 2019 have been woven into one of rugby’s uplifting stories.
What O’Connor has achieved in his “second life” as a Wallaby is the script Cooper would dearly like to write.
2 RADIKE SAMO
Rugby’s favourite afro was out of Test footy for nearly seven years when the big Fijian backrower made his return in 2011.
Samo credited a no-alcohol stance for playing like a young buck again in 2011 with irresistible displays for the Queensland Reds.
He was 35 when he made his return for the Wallabies. The same season he fended off All Black Adam Thomson for that classic try at Suncorp Stadium when the Tri-Nations was won.
3 GRAHAM COOKE
The farmer’s son from the Darling Downs had an astonishing 13-year gap between his Tests of 1933 and 1946 when World War II intervened.
The Queensland hardman of the pack played seven Tests before the war and seven Tests after the war. His last in 1948 was played a week after his 36th birthday.
4 JULIAN HUXLEY
The nine-Test Wallaby made one of rugby’s most incredible comebacks in 2010, two years after surgery to remove a benign brain tumour.
Few thought he would play again when scans revealed the tumour after a knock to the head left him convulsing on the field during a Super Rugby match in 2008.
Huxley always thought it was possible. Radiation and chemotherapy and his own hard work got him back on the field for the Brumbies and Melbourne Rebels.
He received a standing ovation at Canberra Stadium when he ran on for his comeback game, in headgear, in 2010.
READ MORE:
SUPER COOPER: Quade set to start for Wallabies
UNLEASH THOR: Tuqiri calls for Tupou start
CLUB CORNER: WA, SA continue finals
5 DAVID KNOX
We’ve picked “Knoxy” as a comeback example because he had a bit of the mercurial and the mystic to him just like Cooper.
He was a fill-in against Fiji for two Tests in 1985, didn’t play another Test for five years and then had another four years on the outer before playing Test rugby again in 1994.
He still had more to give. When rugby went professional, he was signed by the Brumbies.
Experienced game-controllers are hard to find. He had his longest run as a Wallaby in his 30s and played the last of his 13 Tests at 34 in Argentina in 1997.
6 GREG HOLMES
Cooper only has to look within his own squad to see an amazing comeback figure.
Prop Greg Holmes is 38 and helping out the Wallabies as a front-row reinforcement.
It’s five years since he played his last Test but the crazy thing is his career has an even longer gap between assignments.
He’s played 27 Tests and at the 2007 and 2015 Rugby World Cups. No Wallaby has ever had such a gap between caps...seven years, nine months and 19 days.
