All the angst about winning turnovers and gaining possession.
How many tests have the Wallabies lost now where they have actually dominated possession and territory? Against the Scots, turnovers won were not the problem. Possession was not the problem. So the whole debate about Hooper and fetching was redundant, even though he won three on Saturday, just to prove the fallacy that we need a "fetcher".
Stats back you up, enjoy your triumph.
I know your post is to the generic "Hooper and fetching" protagonists (?) rather than anyone specific, but from my perspective:
a) it matters not how the ball is recovered, as long as it is;
b) if the plan is to recover by driving through the ruck, lets do it?
c) never really had the chance against Scotland to prove/fail on ball recovery through the rucks due to the very high possession stats.
d) that sounds good, but is it so? Scot game plan involved returning the ball through kicks as they wer not worried by either the Aus line out or our ability to exit
e) for me our fundamental fail was through the pigs in tight in attack - ie the attack rucks. If our ruck strength was poor in attack why imagine it would have been better in defence?
Hooper is not really the question here and right now he is the right 7 anyway. Talk of Pocock or LFG is simply fantasy at the moment, and longer term he is being groomed for greatness. I have dealt with this and support your view that the Hooper detractors probably need to move on.
Nothing there changes the balance (or absence thereof) in the back row or our jumping performance.
EDIT: I would humbly suggest that little has changed and once we resolve our ability to break the gain line (or play a lessor team), and our halves/playmakers have a better oportunity to express themselves (more risk ball, more lost ball, more need to recover possession), the issue wont so much re-appear as we recognise it never went away.
Unless something changes.
As Barbarian said, hoof it!
