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Thu 5 May 2016 | 12:22
Quade Cooper will not be playing 7s for Australia at the Olympics

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Comments

Quade Cooper will not be going to the 2016 Rio Olympics, an Australian Sevens statement announced today. He will also not be considered for the final two rounds of the HSBC Sevens World Series.

Wallaby Cooper is one of a handful of fifteens stars who took up 7s with the aim of playing at the biggest sporting event in the world. He represented Australia at the Las Vegas and Vancouver 7s, but didn't set the world alight, and ultimately hasn't had enough time to prove himself.

"There’s no doubt Quade is a quality player, but put simply, we just haven’t had the opportunity to work with him as much as we would have liked over the past five months," explained Australian Sevens Head Coach Andy Friend.

"Each day I have a group of 20-plus players working on different structures and patterns of play and I don’t think we would have got the very best out of Quade had we just thrown him into a tournament with limited preparation – particularly for an event as momentous as the Olympics.

"As many players have found out throughout this season’s World Series, it is no easy task to transition from fifteens to the Sevens form of the game. Although we are still a few months out from the Games, I think it offers the fairest outcome for everyone by making the call now.

"Quade can channel his energies into Toulon while we can enter the next phase of our preparations for Rio knowing the direction we want to take.

"I have complete faith in the players we currently have in the Sevens program and their ability to perform on the big stage. We have two big tournaments coming up in the next couple of weeks in Paris and London and I’m confident we have given ourselves the best possible chance to perform in those events."

Australia are currently fourth in the World Series standings. The squad will travel to Europe on Friday ahead of the ninth leg of the series in Paris, kicking off on Saturday.

Coach Andy Friend explained in this video report

credit: rugby.com.au

Posted By: Grant Constable

8 Comments

  • 10stonenumber10
    2:24 PM 11/05/2016

    **slow clap**

  • danknapp
    9:07 AM 10/05/2016

    "7s is a completely different ball game."

    No it isn't. They use the same ball.

  • 10stonenumber10
    5:03 AM 07/05/2016

    7s is my game. Always has been, always will.

    Part of the difficulty is the sheer amount of space you have to defend. Sometimes making a tackle can actually be the wrong decision. The other is choosing when to strike. How often do you see NZ or Fiji ship it wide to an overlap, only for the wide man to stop and turn the ball back inside despite having a seemingly clear run?

    I would say basic play is cruising around at 60% pace, with brief bursts of 110%, compared to 15s which is 80-95% unless the try line is near. 7s is the only game you will see the ball carrier stand completely still. It is easy to flow from one ruck to the next, a dead stop messes up the rhythm of the defensive line, leaving a dogleg and 0.1 seconds for all 7 to switch on and go in for the kill. 15-a-siders just don't understand that side of it. Conversely though, using that skill in 15s will get your ribs broken. It is like 5-a-side football, more goals are scored from counter attacks than pressing play.

  • drg
    11:04 PM 06/05/2016

    You're right, but to me I've gone from growing up throwing a ball round in a touch/sevens loose play scenario, and bringing that into 15's....

    So almost to me, I played the boys game, then came into 15's which I saw as a bigger, tougher, more aggressive game... so boy to manhood kind of thing.

    I never really played 7's as an adult. Of course, all of my thinking is complete BS, however it was sort of ingrained. Plus you end up watch tri nations, or 6 nations, there is never a 7's tri nations or 6N on 'normal tv'... so again, you're given this false reality that it is somewhat less of a game. Where in fact, it's just less publicised by mainstream media, in comparison to 15's..

    I do agree though that whilst there are many compatible attributes that can be transferred from one game to the other, it is still another ball game altogether.

    Interestingly though, your description 1010... "the loosest" is the perfect description of what makes Cooper sound like such a good player to involve given he somewhat resembles a lumbering giraffe - or a mad octopus and his steps are fantastic, his offloads are lovely... but his downfall is the clinically accurate part..

  • 10stonenumber10
    10:40 PM 06/05/2016

    7s is a completely different ball game. The running lines, defensive patterns, space, and pace of attack is very different. I will go out on a limb and say it is simultaneously the loosest, yet most clinically accurate form of rugby.

  • drg
    5:28 PM 06/05/2016

    You're definitely right Dan. Under rating 7's players is something I must say I've been guilty of doing. Not purposely, or even obviously, but I guess it's more down to the coverage that 7's receives, and the fact that where I grew up, 7's was the closest to what we used to play as a great way to piss about and have a bit of fun.... no one was interested in picking up a ball and having a full blown game of 15's.... plus we didn't have the numbers etc. So I wrongly associate it with childhood chuckabout... which is clearly is not. Then there is the fact that all the tournaments are 90% in the sunshine where fans can have a good piss up...

    Plus there is the age of thing about which sport is better, Soccer, American Football, Rugby Union, Rugby League etc, and 7's sort of doesn't seem to come into it...

    But as you said, it's wonderful in some ways that a world class 15's player can't "waltz in" and shove an aspiring 7's player out of position just because Coopers got some rugby history. Obviously not wonderful for Cooper, but it's a respectful sign in some ways.

  • danknapp
    7:25 AM 06/05/2016

    I think it sends no better message about the quality of the existing 7s players. Take a quality 15s player, stick him into 7s, and he might struggle to adapt. These guys are not playing a B-side game, they are simply the perfect athletes for their respective sport.

    The plus of having 'big names' is that it adds yet more excitement and publicity to 7s at Rio, but those players need to be selected on merit. Kudos to Friend for making the call now and saving Cooper five months of heartache.

  • drg
    6:04 PM 05/05/2016

    Shame, as a 15's player he is immense - however he seemed a bit stuck in his 7's games. I suspect it's due to it being an entirely different game.

    In 15's he can chance a lot of things and there are a lot of team mates either side to either, 1. Clear up after him if it goes wrong, or 2. Capitalise on his sneakiness.

    Whereas in 7's, you can be flamboyant and unpredictable, but you have to do it with the utmost accuracy because of the lesser amounts of team mates, the bigger gaps between team mates, and the fact that the opposition is expecting the unexpected....

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