Does this not provide support to the argument he has lost his composure as a 10 in the final stages of a match?
This is precisely the point I am making, I'd rather chance our arm than accept another valiant loss.
I'd much rather try something and back a young player through adversity. We need to get better at allowing rookies to fail on the pitch and fostering that as a learning experience. Cooper has shown that it's possible to get better from hardships and we haven't done that with many other players. Foley is a known quantity and we shouldn't reward the level of mediocrity that has been established since 2015. There's almost never been a larger sample size to learn from.
We should have beaten NZ but the referee made a ridiculous decision that was unprecedented. Foley was at fault for wasting time but it's really hard to blame him for the loss. He'd also put us in a position where we should have won and the last penalty kick for touch wasn't taken any more slowly than several others during the match but the referee suddenly decided the laws should change at that point.
As I said we were beating France when he was replaced with 10 minutes to go. I'm not sure how he can be blamed for us conceding a try to lose it.
He levelled the scores with less than 10 minutes to go against Ireland but we gave up a late penalty to lose.
Cooper showed it was possible to come back as a more mature player and play well for the Wallabies in 2021. It was arguably better than a lot of his previous test rugby because he didn't try and put the whole game on his own back. He just tried to do his job. What do you mean it's possible to get better from hardships? He was recalled because he had been playing decent rugby overseas and we were desperate for an experienced option.
If Cooper is first choice, the issue with Gordon is that if he was required he's being thrown in with no preparation. I don't think that is allowing him to fail, it's putting him in a position where basically the only outcome is to fail.