Dave Rennie explains why Quade Cooper has dropped out of Autumn Nations Series (2023)

Introduction

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has spoken to media this morning from Brighton via Zoom. Rennie confirmed that flyhalf Quade Cooper had withdrawn from the Wallabies final three Tests of 2021 to remain with his club Kintetsu in Japan. Young playmaker Noah Lolesio will join the group in the United Kingdom, pending Australian Government approval to travel. #AutumnNationsSeries

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Content

Um dave: do you? Do you mind just giving us an opening statement around uh quade or what's happened there exactly? Oh yeah, so he's he's unavailable to her, and and were you informed on that uh the day after well, tuesday or wednesday, or when? When did that, come through um? Well, we spoke um yeah.

He obviously wanted the blessing of the club.

We talked about.

Maybe some flexibility around the uh, the tour dates um yeah, but but in the end um I think he felt he needed to be there supporting his club, his employer uh about to head into a you know their season.

So we've accepted that and we've moved on um.

Fortunately, you've got james o'connor there, but it is pretty thin with reese hodge bowing out with the injury too um.

So kirtley feels is things progressing there for him to come in yeah kelly will come in we're looking more curly as uh.

You know 15 who can play other spots uh, so we're going to bring noah over um.

You know we, you know.

If we had hodgy here, we would have resisted that um to try and get the off-season program that we wanted and so we'll try and we'll try and do both with him here uh.

But you know, he's played a lot of footy for us.

He understands our structures uh.

He can slot in seamlessly he's been training.

Uh he's been training every day um, so his body's great and um he's keen, as so we'll get them on the plane.

As soon as we can get um, you know the appropriate paperwork sorted it's a bit of a perfect storm.

When you have reese hodge to go down too um unfortunately covers so many positions.

Um had quite had you known that quade would have pulled out earlier.

Do you think you might have initially bring up brought over noah, lola, ceo too? Or did you think that hodge was a? Was your second second or third choice? Ten, I know if we um off.

Quite if we thought kawaii wasn't going to tour, noah would have traveled outside of caitlin now.

Is there anyone else in particular, looking to build into the squad? As you said a couple of days ago, you still think it was a little thin in certain positions.

Yeah, obviously um we're down a midfielder and down a a loose forward, um, so we're working through things with the board, as we often talked about with we're reluctant to bring guys over from australia, especially ones that we've got a good program for uh, so we're trying to stick to that um.

Obviously, in noah's case um, as you mentioned, quay goes down.

Rhys goes down.

Um we've got three big tests to play and uh we'll one injury away there from from real pressure so um.

So you sort of made the decision to bring him in, but uh we'll be at updates over the next couple of days around any other further replacements duncan payer in the squad during the trc.

Is there a chance he comes back in as well.

Given his knows your systems yeah, like he's, he's one that we're uh we're discussing dave.

You seem quite disappointed that that quail is not not joining.

I was staying with the other boys in in japan.

Um.

Do you any annie? Maros said to me the other day that he felt the discussions weren't quite as honest as they could have been.

Is that how you feel as the coach that um the discussions weren't quite as honest as they could have been initially with those three boys, um and yeah? Is that do you feel, like those comments from andy as well, may make it a bit more difficult to pick quad and to pick summer and pick sean in the years next year and in a world cup year as well? Yeah, look, I guess: that's uh! There's a bit of crystal ball gazing, going on there um! Oh look! All I say is look.

I spoke to all those boys when we were in in the gold coast uh.

They said they had concerns around the club and how the club would feel about them.

Traveling um.

You know in november close to the start of their season uh, but they all assured me they were keen to travel and, and so for that reason we got a negotiation with the club um that they weren't they weren't happy to be rigged nine and for us to go in and just tell the clubs that were taking them, and so you know hence the reason we had multiple zoo meetings to try and sort through the problem and and um, and took a bit of flexibility on both parties but uh and in the end um.

You know, we've seen the results so yellow we're really disappointed, but yeah.

Our focus now is on who's here, not who's, not moving forward.

Would you look at a model? Potentially, we've got key guys like samuel and kwade, for example, that you say we want to use them in like this is obviously in a rag nine period, but regardless say we would like to use them in july.

We would like to use them during the trc but spring tour.

Maybe you go a different direction, bring your younger guys and use it as more as a developmental time, rather than picking your best 15.

Every week yeah.

I, like I've, been thought along those lines.

As we know, the next um sort of autumn tour is um an x amount of months out from a world cup um.

So you know there won't be a hell of a lot of experimenting going on there um.

I think I mentioned earlier that you know from a rig nine perspective.

You know with the south africans with the argentinians and others a lot of the island teams.

Uh.

The european uk clubs are used to dealing with that um, and so you know they signed those players on knowing that they could be taken away from a rig nine perspective and- and perhaps the japanese clubs have taken these guys on uh, not expecting them to be away so um.

You know, I look, I'm not sure where, where things will head beyond this year.

Obviously this was a bit of a trial based on covert based on a few other plans that we had to utilize more players from overseas, and I guess we'll have a look at the end of a tour and and then get a plan around what that looks like uh beyond this year, g'day david justin here, just in your conversations with quade.

How apologetic was he about how the situation turned out? Oh look, he's uh, look he's a good man.

Uh he's, you know contributed massively on and off the field.

Uh look he's torn.

You know he um.

He wants to be here.

He wants to be a wallaby, but he feels lordy to his club and um.

You know so in the end, he's made a decision that he thinks he feels is the right.

One he's made my decision, that's best for him and uh.

So we've accepted that and we've moved on.

I guess for a lot of um wallabies fans.

They find it quite unusual that a player is more loyal to a club than to the wallabies.

Just as a coach.

How does that sit with you? Um? Oh look.

That's just primary employer, isn't it so I like ideally I you know we want guys who are desperate to be wallabies and um.

I know quite scissious and but he's torn and and you know, if he I think if he had the support of the club and the blessing of the clubby to come um but um, but he hasn't so sorry justin, that's all right! Just one fighter once the next time this sort of situation happens.

Are you reluctant to be those guys again, knowing that this could potentially happen again? Um well, look.

As I said, we'll uh we've got a fair bit of leeway this year around picking players from overseas.

So uh.

You know we'll have discussions with the board, we'll we'll work out what that looks like going forward so um yeah like I, I can't answer it other than that sorry dave just to get thanks, chrissy just to get some clarity around it because there's been a lot of you know sourced um, backgrounding going on and the rest and you've just said there that you spoke to the players and they wanted to come.

They were, they were concerned about how their clubs might feel about it.

You went away and you negotiated with the clubs.

So what was the upshot? The negotiations from what I can kind of see went well and they released them, but they're not coming.

So is it back now on you're saying it's quaid's decision you know: did the club you know, do you feel, like the clubs are maybe coercing the players to to not come that they're telling you that they're free but they're telling the players that they shouldn't or what how's it kind of unfolded that way, yeah I look all I'll say is that the um, the players felt that the clubs wanted them to be there, that it was an important period uh their experience.

You know with the group that they've got heading into their pre-season and so um yeah the flat the players felt compelled to to stay.

How? How tough has this been for? You like in your you, know long coaching career this last six days.

Where does that kind of stack up? Ah yeah, like it's just uh, you know, okay, so I've been around a long time and um.

There's lots of curveballs in this game.

So uh it just happens.

You know you get injuries.

You know you move on with um now we're disappointed because uh, certainly samu and and kwai have been with us for quite a while and contributed really well and and would have been nice to have him here, but but they're not and look we've got it.

We've got a good squad here with a really tight group um.

So we'll prepare well for scotland, and and this won't be a distraction we'll just move on thanks.

Do you feel the relationship with all three players can be uh, salvageable, um and positive? Going forward? Look again, it's really going to depend on what our policies are going to be beyond the share for a start um.

You know, we've obviously got some uh boys based in france who are going to play in this series as well, and then we'll sit around with the board and we'll look about what the future looks like.

So so you know it may be irrelevant.

Based on whatever the plans are going forward and on the plus side, do you think, can it be actually a blessing in disguise? You get to use that second layer of players that perhaps you had been reluctant to over the last five games, which had earned your wins but maybe not tested the depth of the full squad.

Yeah I mean um.

Obviously, sam is not here, but he missed the last test.

Anyway, shawn's played 20 minutes of footy, so he hasn't had a massive contribution on field.

Obviously, quade has uh fortunate that we've now got rabbs back um.

You know he's he's been training for a month um and we know the quality that he brings um.

I think noise learns a lot over the last period uh, so we're excited to bring him.

We get a chance to look at um curtly in our group and and get an understanding how he would fit in from a cultural perspective and from a rugby perspective and um yeah and then um.

You have these other guys who may um get an opportunity in scotland which is good for us.

You know we um we're uh we're keen to find out more about them.

There's no better way than under pressure in front of massive crowds.

Up here be good, just just on rabs dave.

Do you feel, like he's, had enough game time to get ready for three potentially 70 75 minutes stints in a row, and does he, I know he's quite particular about how he how he prepares? Do you feel like he's feeling up to the task of starting three tests in a row? He uh he's had a bit more thought even quite head when he played his first test um, so he's ready to go.

We trained yesterday, uh.

He looked really good um he's running quicker than he has in the last two years.

So he's worked really hard to get his body right.

Um and, as you know, look he's he's a good thinker of the game, he's really smart um.

That was good.

It was good having them in the middle yesterday driving things, so we got a lot of confidence in them and just on I'm not sure if it was nathan mentioned, but harry wilson.

Um was the decision to give him the full preseason.

Was that made independent of sean um, obviously being able to go at that stage? Would he have gone? Had sean uh pulled out before the tour began? No we're always going to leave harry at home and, as we've talked about um, we've got a lot of time for harry uh.

There's certain shifts that he needs to make physically and being here and trying to do that.

It's just about impossible, so um, so we're committed to leaving harry at home to to um, make those shifts and give them the best opportunity to push for a start next year and just confirming the guys join.

The squad.

They'll all come in sunday, um, yeah, sunday or monday, so uh, both rory, who plays for toulouse they're playing russian where curtly is, and they play sunday night at nine o'clock- uh some ungodly time over here so um by the time they finish.

Uh they won't be coming until monday.

Now we we've got a sunday game, so it's not disastrous, don't even think in those on the uh selection policy moving forward, like I'm sure the board will ask you um scott johnson, for feedback on what you think it should be.

Has this changed last week changed what you think the policy or the policy you would like to see implemented? Does that change in your mind not now compared to what you thought it should be seven days ago, um! Well, I guess um.

You know when we first bought these boys back and when we were in australia, um yeah.

My thought process was that you know that would be available for rig nine tests.

So when we're sure about japan um I'm assumed to be available for these three and uh yeah.

Probably one of the highlights is that um, you know um discussing that sort of stuff with a club early on would have been important um, but you know like in the end.

We spent a lot of time doing that um and, as I said, I like, I think you know 12 months ago.

They weren't thinking that these guys that they've gotten their team, former internationals would be unavailable uh due to test footy, so um yeah.

So like I, you know, I'm not sure if we'd do things uh drastically differently, but certainly my mindset was that the players were keen to play.

You know, but they wanted the support of the club.