'At no stage have I agreed to play': Quade Cooper denies Barbarians commitment

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Are any Pumas available for the Barbarians or have they all had quite enough of being away from home? It's a shame it won't be a full strength Samoa but it's a great choice for opposition.

Hey Geek – agree i get abit serious some times – but it makes the world go round – have a read of this paragraph from one of the Roar articles this morning – “While Williams joins Justin Tipuric, George North, Leigh Halfpenny, Dan Lydiate, James Botham, Jarrod Evans and Josh Macleod on the injury list the Welsh are also without their England-based stars. Thye game is outside the official Test window which means Premiership clubs won’t be required to release their players for the fixture.That means Dan Biggar, Louis Rees-Zammit, Taulupe Faletau, Callum Sheedy, Nick Tompkins, Ioan Lloyd and Tommy Reffell will be missing.” – Welcome to the world of club land where nothing else matters and tier one internationals are reduced to 2nds playing the thirds – ala the frogs series earlier this year – it is what it is i guess – enjoy your day man.

Yes and at the end of his career with a RWC in sight I’d imagine he’s not interested in risking serious injury doing dog and pony shows.

I share your fear Big A, and I hope we are wrong.

Terry, you were certainly not the only one defending Quade. .

..for years, i was the only one on this forum defending quade when everyone was having a dump on him..

Good questions! Robertson looks like he has one sole goal ( All Blacks Coach) So this keeps the pressure on Foster.

TBH Ive noticed he has the back 3 playing differently and he has the centres coming off the 10 differently. Also he seems to not want to bother contesting the ruk a lot but lets his players choose when to do that. Will he be rehired if NZ win the WC? Would that put Razor in a position where he is forced from NZ for a test coaches role? All will be revealed lol

It is good to have a healthy debate Jacko. You are so right about Foster being honest about BB, Hansen would not say anything about players he favours.

I cant agree about a top 10 kicking goals MK. Plenty of test sides have a different kicker but I get where you are coming from. I see Foster came out and said BB has been very good with a few things to work on. About time as we certainly never heard these type of things from Hansen.

Big A, Sounds like you're on the board of RA. We only see a certain number of players move overseas. The ones we need for test duties that are over there are even less. McMahon is a good example, a good player for Europe but is he good enough for the Wb's? Kellaway, Skelton, Arnold & Coleman have all gone over and are possibly now perfect for test duties. I would like to see some of the young players do a season or two over there and then come back. We need to liberate and cultivate players so they become fabulous for Australia. Not control and indenture young men and women, let them learn and be good for us. Don't panic they will still call Australia home!!!!!!

Interested to see a Manu Samoa team, particularly if they can get the best Pacific Islander players from the European clubs. With a good coach they could be quite a strong side, even with limited prep time.

He did Jacko you are right… But he is not playing like that now, his general kicking is up and down also. A top number 10 kicks goals, and he is poor at that, Jordie by comparison is kicking well and he is not playing the 10 role.

That’s why I’d prefer guys to go OS to Japan than Europe as japan will release them and be much more understanding than the French teams are for example.

I heard Reds coach Thornes superior Flyhalves Issac Lucas, Hamish Stewart, Jono Lance, Ben Lucas and Bryce Hegarty are available for Barbarian selection.

Madkiwi BB went on in 2016 and 2017 to win Player of the year in world rugby meaning that the next person chosen at 10 after DC retired was pretty good actually.

1. The Barbarians organisation made a public announcement, not Rennie, so it is not an issue of Cooper “embarrassing the man.” 2. You bag Cooper for making a public statement, but not the Barbarians for making an apparently incorrect public announcement. Why? Is it just more of the same old seize any opportunity to dump on Cooper? 3. Cooper’s clarifying the matter was no doubt intended to remove any opportunity for the Cooper-haters to bray that he reneged on a commitment, when he has done no such thing. 4. Not to mention his contract with his club, which he is honouring.

Josh Ioane called for blacks, but Tony Brown wouldn't play him so central cast (aka) contracting have moved him on. IMO hed be a big bonus for any Oz SR franchise. Personality conflict? Hansen did not prefer Mitch Hunt?

You wait and see – this is just the beginning – all these guys coming back from O/S clubland is only short lived – now that the clubs have suddenly discovered that it’s open slather with the Wallabies the clubs will start putting pressure on them to make excuses to not return – if the players do not abide then their value on the open market will reduce significantly if these Wallabies come with a caveat of having to play 10 or 15 matches a year for the Wallabies – it’s just won’t happen – you mark my words – the clubs will start pressuring the players to make themselves unavailable throughniggling mysterious injuries. There was classic case 20 years ago – i can’t remember the Socceroo’s name – but back in those days it was pretty rare for Aussies to make top level Euro teams – can’t remember his name – he signs up with an English Premier league team and is killing them over there – comes back to play a game for the Socceroos in AUstralia – does his knee – missess 6 mths and they sack him – never plays again in the Premier League – same with these guys – they will not risk million dollar contracts to play for the gold guernsey – only for world cups – when the dust settles on all this they’ll only be available for world cups – i mean look at the French – they couldn’t even get their top flite team because of club commitments. This whole exodus thing will reduce the SR in AUs to little more than club rugby standard – all the good players will leave and we’ll rarely see them in the Gold let alone SR teams