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Cooper thanks Rebels for restoring 'a lot of love I lost for the game'

Quade Cooper looks dejected after the Rebels were beaten by the Chiefs on Friday (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)

Melbourne Rebels and Australia fly-half Quade Cooper has taken to Instagram to thank his club after his comeback season ended on Friday. 

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Needing a win to make the Super Rugby quarter-finals, the Rebels were battered 59-8 by the Chiefs at AAMI Park. It concluded a disappointing end to the season for the Rebels, who lost their last two games with a combined score of 125-8. 

However, for Cooper, this can be seen as a good comeback campaign. The 31-year-old was completely dropped from Brad Thorn’s Reds side last year and was forced to play club rugby for Souths. 

Many would have thought that it spelled the end of his Super Rugby career, let alone his international aspirations. 

However, the Rebels took a punt with the mercurial fly-half this season, in which he has thanked them for restoring “a lot of love I lost for the game and faith I lost in the rugby system”. This is what he shared: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BysV5MrArWJ/?utm_source=ig_web_options_share_sheet

The Rebels made a blistering start to their season, winning five of their first seven games with Cooper at the helm. In light of his performances, there were many calls for a recall back to Michael Cheika’s Wallabies squad, which he still has a good chance of making for the World Cup in September. 

However, he will undoubtedly be disappointed in how the season has ended, where his side won just two from nine games and subsequently dropped out of the top eight. It meant the Rebels’ hopes of making the play-offs for the first time were dashed. 

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Therefore, it will be mixed feelings for Cooper at the end of the season where he will ultimately be glad he is back performing in Super Rugby and proving his doubters wrong. 

The 70-cap international also added that his future is unclear, as he may be part of the ever-increasing number of Wallabies that move abroad after the World Cup. 

WATCH: Part one of the two-part RugbyPass documentary on what fans can expect in Japan at this year’s World Cup

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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