I went from being well known to the most well known and the most hated. It was crazy. In the wide-ranging podcast, Cooper also delved into his departure from the Reds, dealing with the serious knee injury that derailed his career, and growing up in Tokoroa.
Quade Cooper speaks out about being 'well known and hated' am, Friday 6 December Related stories. Not in those words but I basically said that. Cooper made the World Cup squad under Michael Cheika and joined Toulon for a season in , before returning to the Reds at Ballymore.
Things turned frosty when Brad Thorn, All Blacks and Broncos legend, was elevated to head coach ahead of the season. Thorny had just took over as coach and he wanted the guys that he wanted. But you're not able to do that when he's paying me," he said. The manner in which that happened appeared to hurt Cooper, but he revealed that he was able to flip his perspective with the help of good friend Sonny Bill Williams and manager Khoder Nasser.
Is this the end of my career? I have to strip it back, understand it, instead of just letting your ego take over. Cooper enjoyed a rebirth in Melbourne but the season ended poorly.
Credit: AAP. They thought my ego would take over and I'd say I'm too good to be playing club football, you can't treat me like this, and bit back.
The stand-off was lapped up by fans and commentators, as Cooper played in the Brisbane club comp with Souths while he was still being paid by Queensland and Rugby Australia.
He eventually signed a deal with the Rebels, who picked up him up at a bargain price. Cooper and Will Genia lit up the first half of Super Rugby this year before the Rebels' campaign derailed. He missed World Cup selection and signed with Kintetsu. Cooper said he wasn't sure where his relationship with Cheika broke down but he felt the then-Wallabies coach did not enjoy being challenged.
Not that that's right or wrong, but we were seeing it as players, there were certain things that were happening that we couldn't put up with so when we'd speak up about it I know I'm the best passer in the team.
You want me to go work on my kicking? I'll working on my kicking. But don't feed me bulls I said that to him on the phone, and I remember he got the s with that, we ended up having a big argument. Two guys never to play with him again. Even saying things, I started to realise when you've got a little bit of power, you think, 'I'm not going to get pushed around anymore'.
You've got fans and people that hate you, but when you start speaking out, that's magnified again. That Richie McCaw stuff, that just turned a whole nation against me. Question Did you knee him in the head on purpose? The thing is, the stuff that happens on a footy field, that's so small.
I've been punched in the head, kneed in the head, all that stuff, but it was who you did it to. Already, I was a Kiwi boy playing for Australia, so they [were] already hating on me to start with and then I go and knee the captain of the All Blacks, untouchable, in the head. After moving to Australia from New Zealand, it didn't take long for Quade Cooper pictured, second from right to attract the attention of junior rugby talent scouts. Ruhia, who worked nights at the local KFC, made another big decision.
The entire family moved to Brisbane to give Quade every chance to make it. The Queensland Rugby Union arranged a scholarship to a top private school and at the age of 18, he made his debut for the Reds and, two years later, the Wallabies. It should have been plain sailing, but it wasn't. Rugby Australia's wonder boy soon became their biggest headache.
In , the year after making his Test debut at the age of 20 — and being fined 'several thousand dollars' by the Australian Rugby Union for engaging in a food fight at a team hotel — he was arrested and charged with burglary involving the alleged theft of two laptop computers.
As their list of off-field indiscretions grew, it seemed they were in a race to see who could have their ARU contract torn up first. In September , Cooper appeared to be winning. It seemed only a matter of time before a parting of the ways.
So what happened? How did the one-time bad boy of Australian rugby morph into the calm, composed match-winner who in the post-game TV interview on Sunday night sounded more like a Zen philosopher than the wild child who at one stage had a longer rap sheet than Ned Kelly?
Cooper's previous requests for citizenship were denied on the basis he provided 'no evidence that he had engaged in activities of benefit to Australia. Cooper is playing club rugby in Japan with the Kintetsu Liners - which has been a key factor in his citizenship requests being denied by the Home Affairs department.
My brothers, and my baby nephew, will grow up and see the things that I did and they'll think, if he did that, then I can do that. I want to them to see the good things, not those other things. Things, he says, that were brought on by a combination of youth, inexperience and money. Lots of it. The kid from Tokoroa was living the high life.
He was a social media superstar, his accounts littered with photos of him with glamorous girlfriends like models Ellie McLeod and Laura Dundovic and Olympic champion Stephanie Rice. My parents couldn't give me advice because they'd never had that experience. What do you do with that money when you're 18 or 20 years old? People who hate you as well, people who are jealous of you … you've got attention from a lot of people.
After making his name as a schoolboy star in Queensland, Cooper has played 71 Tests for the Wallabies in a decorated career pictured in What wasn't hard for Cooper at that time was performing on the football field.
His season, in which he spearheaded the Reds to the Super Rugby title, was arguably the best-ever by an Australian player.
He tried things on the field that season that seemingly defied gravity, physics and common sense — and more often than not they came off. He headed back to New Zealand with the Wallabies for the Rugby World Cup determined to establish himself as the best player in the game. On the second occasion All Black enforcer Brad Thorn stepped in to come to his captain's aid.
To Cooper it was just part of the game. To rugby-crazed New Zealanders it was a declaration of war. When Cooper arrived for the World Cup, the natives were waiting. A newspaper claimed to have taken a poll that rated him ahead of the French perpetrators of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. The psychological battering Cooper received for the seven weeks of the tournament was unprecedented. Every Kiwi, from then-prime minister John Key down, wanted to join the anti-Cooper movement.
He was booed from kick-off to full-time every match he played. Off the field it was just as unrelenting. Throughout the tournament Cooper told reporters that the constant booing and abuse was not getting to him but that was obviously not the case. He appeared nervous and hesitant. When the Wallabies faced the All Blacks in the semi-final at Auckland's Eden Park, he put the kick-off out on the full before the Wallabies were eliminated and the Kiwis marched on to the final. The Wallabies star was a regular in the social pages when he began dating swimmer Stephanie Rice pictured, the couple together in
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