Wallabies World Cup reject Quade Cooper will return to action with his club side Hanazono Kintetsu Liners in the latest round of Japan Rugby League One.
The 35-year-old – who was a controversial omission from Eddie Jones’s Rugby World Cup squad last year – faces the Peter Hewat-coached Ricoh Black Rams as two sides without a win square off in the round-four clash in Tokyo on Saturday.
Cooper returned from a long-term injury in the nick of time last season to save his club when Kintetsu staved off relegation by beating Israel Folau’s Urayasu D-Rocks in the league’s ‘replacement battle’.
He will combine with his long-time Test halves partner Will Genia against an opponent who also boasts two former Queensland Reds in the shape of backs, Isaac Lucas and Matt McGahan.
Former Wallabies coaches Robbie Deans and Dave Rennie have edgy assignments.
Deans and his unbeaten Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights host his old New Zealand sparring partner Steve Hansen’s Toyota Verblitz at Kumagaya on Saturday.
The pair, whose association goes back to the start of the century when Hansen assisted Deans at the Crusaders, have coached against each other in the international arena, and now in Japan.
Hansen has yet to get the better of his former club boss in Japan but will arrive with a cast that includes All Blacks Beauden Barrett and Aaron Smith, Springboks star Pieter Steph du Toit and Brave Blossoms skipper Kazuki Himeno.
While Deans has left star Wallabies winger Marika Koroibete on the bench, he still has Rugby World Cup-winning South Africa midfielder Damien de Allende in his starting XV, along with 10 members of Japan’s squad from last year’s global showpiece in France.
Rennie’s much improved Kobelco Kobe Steelers, who have won two of their first three, are up against Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath, for whom Rennie’s successor with the Wallabies, Eddie Jones, is a long-time adviser.
The ex-Chiefs coach will also face his old skipper from Super Rugby, Sam Cane, with the current All Blacks captain going up against Rugby World Cup teammates Brodie Retallick and Ardie Savea in a Kobe side that also features former New Zealand centre Ngane Laumape.
Sunday is headlined by the clash between defending champions Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo Bay and unbeaten Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo.
Former Wallaby Bernard Foley’s Kubota have made an unconvincing start to their title defence, dropping two of their first three, while Toshiba have impressed, with All Blacks recruits Shannon Frizell and Richie Mo’unga prominent.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
Well documented in news papers.
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
KPM, one of the amazing things I discover on sites like this is the compulsion some have to edit nuance out of their minds. I am grateful for the detailed presentation of Cooper’s interview about Cheika. For me, and nuance-respectful people like RO here, that interview explains: - the impenetrable stubbornness and myopia of Cheika, - the extent Cooper went to to communicate with him, - the close mindedness of Cheika in tactic discussions, and - some explanation of why Chek went the way of the dinosaur. But for you, it was Cooper having ‘difficulties’ with ‘yet another’ coach?? When you remove enough of the pesky skins surrounding an onion, you end up onion-less. Such an outpouring of information on a relationship with a demonstrably myopic coach can lead to several conclusions that would include Cooper as player of value, and a leader of character. To use that same information as a premise in an argument against the value of Cooper as a player takes a special type of logical deduction that I am unfamiliar with.
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
documented ?
Mark Berry
Roar Rookie
Well said Mike.
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
Jim Carmichael statements ring a bell
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
:laughing:
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
What not happening, how surprising. Good thing I’m sitting down. KL being unable to back up some nonsense he’s spouted on line. This must be a first. Have to note the time and date. By the by you ever hear of Hitchens’s razor ?
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
Sure that's why they paid overs. I'd like to be not wanted as much. But as it's well documented I'd expect you to start providing those documents any moment now. Although I won't hold my breath :laughing:
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
only just read an article last week saying management and one senior management person didn't want a bar of him as he was a shit stirrer and if you need a signed affidavit for this one its not happening either
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
and they didn't want him
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
Insults, over active imagination much? But it seems the mature view would be that adults are allowed to disagree with each other from time to time. Unless of course one of them has the surname Cooper, somehow that's an exception.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
No, but as I'm not 15, I won't stoop to insults as you do.
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
Cheika clearly preferred Foley to Cooper. I think that's pretty obvious. And as a coach it's his prerogative. Why don't you throw Eddie Jones into the mix as well - he didn't select Cooper for the RWC. Deans may well have had problems with Cooper. So what ? Lately on this blog I and a couple of others have had a problem with you. So does that mean you also have some egregious and heinous character defects ? Or is that just human nature that from time to time we disagree with each other.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
You could keep denying that Cheika and Deans had big problems with Cooper and stopped selecting him, but even his biggest supporters wouldn't deny it. Some strange fantasy.
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
Yep and at a neutral venue Cooper is 100% against South Africa - if only the Kiwi's could say the same :stoked:
Ruckin' Oaf
Roar Rookie
Yeah that's why the Reds management went hard to get him back from Toulon. Big 3 year contract. 'Cause they didn't want him.
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
oh so cooper the player was stirring the pot and not conforming to the this coach and game plan as well in this set up as well :laughing:
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
actually its well documented that it was the whole reds management that didn't want a bar of sir Quadie but if its easier to blame one coach with kiwi ties go well sailor
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
oh that time he reneged on the KFC shout is one,
Kens lovechild
Roar Rookie
Thats a bit disrespectful to ken Ruckin oath