Quade Cooper to receive surprise call up – Rugby News Update
Quade Cooper, the 24-year-old Queensland Reds and Australian fly-half might be a surprise inclusion in the Wallabies squad that takes on Wales and Scotland for a test match series.
Cooper is a native of New Zealand, coming to Australia at the age of 15 before taking the Australian rugby scene by storm. He made his Reds debut as a teenager and his impressive performances earned him his first international cap against Italy at Padova,
on November 8, 2008. He scored a try in his first match, establishing himself at the international level.
His last match for Australia was against Wales in October 2011, at the Rugby World Cup, in a crucial third-place play-off game. Unfortunately for the fly-half, he was injured, and since then he has not represented club or country. However, it is expected
that Cooper will make a return this weekend for Queensland, but his club coach Ewen McKenzie has squashed any such hopes.
"Quade's not far away but realistically it's a low percentage that he'll play on the weekend," McKenzie told
Fox Sports. "It would have to be a miracle, really, given that we've only got two training sessions and he still has to do things around contact to be absolutely sure he is mentally right."
Robbie Deans, the head coach of the Wallabies is weary of the threat that Wales will pose coming to Australia at the back of a triumphant 2012 Six Nations. Deans obviously wants his star players available for the test series. Speaking about Wales' visit
he said, "After winning the Six Nations so impressively, there's no doubt that Wales see this tour as the chance to take the next step. They were quite vocal about that at the end of the tournament, saying it was time they beat one of the major southern hemisphere
nations.”
Copper will be keen to recover as soon as possible and the first signs are encouraging. The fly-half has so far played 35 test matches for Australia, starting 29 of them, while coming off the bench in 6 matches.
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