Quade Cooper opens up on that incident with Richie McCaw

We all have our touchpoints piru. I get it. Cooper also attracts a lot of unsolicited attacks, bullets loaded just waiting for an excuse to restart the booing. The irony? It’s a story about an apology from Quade to Richie. Not all the cheap shot merchants in our corner of the world are Aussies.

Just get sick of the self righteous calls of 'cheater' by the uninformed Ken.

No we don’t Piru. But you know we could. Much better to just be as balanced and fair to the individual concerned. Please don’t bring my name into this. The rest of the Leg family suffer when it is used to score points.

Let’s see if we can get to Loe, Meads We always do, don't we "Ken Catchpole's Other Leg"?

I don’t think Spencer is anything like Quade from a Prima dona perspective. Spencer is not a blow horse, off field he’s as humble and respectful as you can get, actually quite shy. Quade liked the spotlight. On field Spencer liked to be flamboyant, didn’t shirk his defensive responsibilities and if he has flaws just overplayed his hand at times under pressure. But he didn’t criticise coaches, take cheap shots at those he thought annoyed him. Don’t get the comparison as people even though there are similarities in terms of their styles, they’re chalk and cheese in terms of their manner.

So many kiwis jumped on an article? How many before your comment? 4? 5?

To be fair I think McCaw was referred to as a master of dirty play because he rarely got pinged for it, not because he was worse than anyone else. He was a master of treading on the wrong side of the laws and getting away with it. This is more a credit to his game awareness and knowing what he could get away with.

Piru, ‘funny how so many Kiwis become purer than driven snow pearl clutchers whenever it comes to Cooper, but happy for McCaw, ‘Elbow’s’ Moody and Coathanger Read to tread the line. We can all play this game, Piru. Carry on. Let’s see if we can get to Loe, Meads and Hadlee and Chappell. Generalising is such fun, but do you really want to line up with Haydn, Phantom and Danny in the boo seats?

Don’t bring facts like this to a ‘Quade is a selfish dud’ thread, Train. It’ll confuse the know alls who don’t need stats on useless things like ‘try assists’. By posting a positive Quade stat you are taking a big risk. A ‘fanboy’ tag may wing your way. NZ and NZers are capable of so many good things, but then there are KiwiHaydn, Phantom and Danny to keep all that trans-Tasman goodwill in check. And the irony - we are defending a NZer from cheap shots from other NZers.

This x one zillion.

'Get away with' is a very relative term in this case though, isn't it? McCaw's talent wasn't in sneakily 'getting away' with things. It was with determining early where each ref drew the line and calibrating his play to suit.

Yeah, I reckon around 2011, he probably was pretty close to the best player in the world... McCaw and Carter aside... Cooper was amazing in 2011. But I get your point Piru.

I was mostly copy and pasting the transcript from Cooper, as many of us live overseas and can’t watch the video. As for McCaw, I’d say he was both great, and got away with a lot. Are all 7’s trying to do this, sure. Did refs pay less attention to him than others? I’d say they did, the aura around him wasn’t just from how good he was, but completed by the way the NZ public and SM arm elevated him to saint status, and went bananas whenever he got the rare bad call.

I think you’ll find there are plenty of Wallabies supporters that dislike Quade too. I’m not sure why it’s a predominantly Kiwi thing, perhaps you should ask some others why they think QC is such a top bloke. On the scale of 10s, I’d pick BB any day of the week over QC. As a 10 though, I’d prefer someone else run the game for NZ, as I agree BB has weaknesses, not least of which is his kicking game. Give me a DC or Mehrtens style of player. However with Cruden and Sopoaga opting out of the mix, the options in NZ started to look a little slim. BB has to be on the field somewhere.

There was something about Cooper that upset Kiwis Yeah it was the incessant crowing about what a wonderful player he was, the ridiculous comparisons to HM Dan Carter and Marshal claiming he was "the best player in the world". It was him believing his own press, declaring himself Public Enemy 1 and saying 'bring it on'. Had he been anywhere near as good as was claimed (and he believed, it probably would have made for good theatre, as it was, we just wanted to see him crushed.

McCaw was a master of dirty play. Depends what you call dirty I suppose - funny how so many Aussies become purer than driven snow pearl clutchers whenever it comes to McCaw, but happy for Smith/Hooper/Pocock to tread the line

You guys think very highly of Thorne's estimation of Cooper I suspect he forgot about it as soon as it was done, I doubt very much he took up much room in BT's thoughts after that

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Most people disliked Quade from the start Sounds like an irrational dislike. Just what we've said all along...

Most people disliked Quade from the start. I think the incident with McCaw just highlighted again that QC is the type of guy to take cheap shots rather than take the heat head on. He then copped the (at times, over the top) backlash from the NZ public and cracked under the pressure (yet again). Barrett I rate far more highly than both Cooper and Spencer, he’s a proven performer in both attack and defence, a World champion, and World Rugby player of the year. Still, he’s no DC :silly: