THE INSIDER: 2013 - The Year of the Beast

He’s a bright bloke, that Michael Hooper. After an amazing year, ‘Hoops’ was responsible for arguably the quote of the Spring Tour.

It was made following the win against England at Twickenham.

Hooper won the official man of the match award that day.

Having won the Wallabies ‘Man of Gold’ award the previous week in Paris, where he was one of the few among us who enhanced his reputation on what was otherwise a crushingly empty night; Hoops was then called on to announce the Player’s choice for the Cook Cup Test in the dressing rooms at Twickenham.

His introduction was a warning for this year that all in the game should heed.

“This week’s winner is a guy that I’m glad I won’t have to tackle next year now that I’ve joined the Waratahs… Cliffy Palu!”

The Beast is back!

While big ‘Cliffy’ was an almost unanimous choice amongst the playing group for the award that night, he’d actually set the scene for the game in the warm ups beforehand, which left most of us in no doubt that we’d beat England.

After a long week, where the guys had to do more than a bit of self-analysis following arguably our most disappointing performance of the year in Paris; Cliffy put our collective frustration into words as we got together at the end of the pre-match shake down.

“We are going to get stuck into these guys,” or words to that effect, was his message, “and we are going to do it as mates, so that we can look each other in the eye afterwards and know that none of us let our mates down.”

In other words, after all that had been written in the press that week about what the English were going to do to us, especially in the scrum, Cliffy told us that we were going to bash them – and that’s exactly what we did.

And he led the way, hitting so hard that by the end of the game, you could sense that the English guys really didn’t want any more of him.

A couple of them said as much at the after-match.

Given all of his experience, he is now firmly in the leadership ranks, both at the ‘Tahs but also with the Wallabies.

Last year’s tour was a notable one for ‘Cliffy’.

For the first time in a long time, possibly in his whole career, he’d been able to properly rest from injury, without being rushed back, which meant his mental as well as his physical well-being was where it should be.

Hopefully the lessons in that will be absorbed by all those he’s associated with: managing his work load and looking after him will be the best way to get the most of what is a valuable resource!

Home life is also good. He’s well settled now that he’s a Dad, enjoying living in Oz and still loves playing for the ‘Tahs and Wallabies, even though I know his contract isn’t the biggest because of all the injuries he’s had – which puts a lot of what went on last year around the contracts of others into perspective!

Probably because he’s always been rushed back too soon, ‘Cliffy’ has had a terrible run with injury.

Last year, it was a nerve in his shoulder, which he’s had problems with before.

The year before, it was his neck, which was understandably pressure-cooked to get right so that he could make it to the World Cup, only to then be betrayed by the lack of adequate preparation time when he pinged his hamstring against the Yanks in Wellington.

Tournament over.

He’s had to fly home from tours before and missed most of the 2010 season because of a knee ligament injury.

I can still remember him being carted off on a stretcher against Scotland at Murrayfield a few years back, and then rising like Lazarus to terrify the Welsh in Cardiff only a week later.

When Cliffy is confident, not only does he intimidate those he is playing against, he also lifts everyone around him: not many players can raise the pulse through the whole team like he can when he gets that shoulder out and puts one of his ‘specials’ on an opponent.

The confidence in his body impacted on his running game, too.

I’m just one of a number of people who have always thought he should be a bit more selfish at times and run more.

It’s not that he’s not able to do it, it’s just being the team man that he is, Cliffy has tended to think more about creating opportunities for those around him by being the decoy, as opposed to having a crack himself.

It’s one reason why there is so much more to come from him both in his all-round game and as a leader, and it’s why, with the confidence he has gained from getting through the Spring Tour in good nick while playing a key role for the side; I reckon 2013 is going to be his year.

Warriors league player Manu Vatuvei might be known as the Beast, but I doubt his body would be as chiselled as Cliffy’s is.

If you try and grab him, you are likely to just bounce off, so you have to just take the same approach as you might trying to take on a runaway Rhino; you brace yourself for the impact and just accept that it’s going to hurt!

Hence the wisdom of Michael Hooper.

Not only is he a smart young guy, if he’s right – and all of Australia should be hoping that he is – the Wallabies are going to have a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ to unleash on the British & Irish Lions.