Back from the rugby wilderness, Quade Cooper is a different man.

It has certainly been a while…Well done to the Wallabies. Despite making it hard for themselves with some pretty unacceptable discipline and errors. Nevertheless, they finally found a way to win and beat the current World Champs to boot. It appears Quade Cooper had the Midas touch – a risky call many pundits said, but all the other options were either unavailable or simply too vanilla. The risk paid dividends – big ones. This wasn’t the Quade of old, this is QC 2.1, a very different player in many respects with some of the old traits clearly visible.

Messrs Rennie, Wisemantle, McKellar, Taylor et al. have created quite a conundrum. Lolesio is definitely a player of the future and should and will figure into the Wallabies 2023 RWC plans, but Cooper’s performance can’t be ignored. Was it a one off or has he genuinely matured as a player in a similar way to O’Connor? Should he be a permanent fixture in the side?

For those close followers of the game and armchair pundits, we all remember what we’d consider the antithesis of the Holly Trinity – Beale, Cooper and O’Connor back in the day. Unbelievable talent but unbelievably unreliable. If my memory serves me correctly, some journos cleverly referred to them the 3 Amigos. Back then, they were 3 incredibly talented individuals that not even Robbie Deans could get the most out of and we all know how that ended.

So fast forward to today and the question that begs is, does Cooper stay on as the first choice Wallaby 10 while he continues to perform, maybe with Lolesio coming off the bench occasionally or is Lolesio given the rest of this season to purely spend time with Cooper and learn? Clearly his [Lolesio] confidence was shot – some say a little too cocky for his own good – but not nailing your kicks and an incredibly poor passing game under pressure can’t be ignored. Neither can nailing 8 from 8 and keeping the opposition guessing. Clearly the ABs are a different proposition, but let’s not get negative too early. Let’s also not forget about O’Connor who is slowly but surely recovering in the sideline. Where does he fit in? Does Rennie vacillate between O’Connor and Cooper?

A few have raised the age issue. As they say if you’re good enough you’re old enough, so does it apply at the other end? Does it matter if the Aussie 10 is 33? The Boks didn’t have an issue with Morne Steyn helping them win a recent series against the Lions and he’s 37.

Some hard decisions to come. Hopefully some exciting times to come too!

All images: Rugby Australia