“I wanted to be around family and I wanted to be in a place where I could put the time into those things that I needed to put the time in.
“That doesn’t mean that I’m sitting now completely cured. It’s not like that at all, it’s just that at that point in time, I needed to be somewhere else, and that wasn’t Argentina.
“I’m excited to be back. I’m also realistic knowing that last time I was here, it didn’t quite work out. I’m back putting myself in this position because I want to be here.
“I’m realistic that there are going to be some really good days and there are going to be some days where the realities of travel and rugby are difficult. I think that’s part of the whole journey and doing what we do.”
Australian rugby’s most-capped captain says the decision was exacerbated by the fact he was overseas and that he’d started to look at life from a different lens knowing that he had other people to worry about.
Hooper devised a plan to return to the field the moment he touched back down in Sydney, but those plans fell through as he adjusted to life away from the game.
He said putting pressure on himself didn’t work and that Rugby Australia supported him through the entire process, which made it easier to get away from a career that had been defined by strict schedules.
The tireless forward is in line to take on Scotland this weekend but he won’t have the ‘C’ next to his name, with James Slipper to be in charge for the tour.
It’s something he’ll be asked about for months to come, but for now, he just wants to support Slipper after everything he did for him while he was out of the game.
“He supported me for a long time and he was an amazing person throughout my whole captaincy,” Hooper said.
“He’s got my utmost support for whatever he needs.
“What he said to me is that he wants me to come back and enjoy my rugby and compete. He understands that what’s good for the team is me going well, first and foremost mentally, but also physically.”
Hooper said talk of leading the side at next year’s World Cup was premature given his recent break showed how fleeting sport can be, and that Rugby Australia fully respected his decision to give up the captaincy for now.
“We fleshed out these things and there were no agendas from anyone,” he said.
“This is very much a fluid, moving thing.
“The decision just felt quite natural in the end to go on this tour and not have the level of responsibility that I had previously so I could focus on myself.”
Hooper has spent the past 12 weeks working with therapists and doing lots of reading in a bid to get his mind right, and it’s a far cry from what he would have done earlier in his career.
“As a younger man, I viewed asking for help as a bit of weakness,” he said, thanking his wife, family and friends for their support.
“You want to feel like you’ve got it all worked out, but I certainly didn’t.
“I’m in a time when I was supported by employers, but also the wider public as well for this decision. We’re in a time where that stuff is heard more and more.
“I look back on this period and it’s part of being human. It was a great time of my life and I was lucky to have that support.”
