Rugby: Robshaw sees shutting down Hooper as key to win

Chris Robshaw (left) says there will be plenty riding on the game against the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images

"You always look at key individuals and the captain is one of those guys.

"He's very good over the ball, of course, but I also believe his link play - getting the ball out of contact and keeping it alive - is a big factor in his game.

"He's one of the heartbeats of the side, the person who gets things going."

The speaker might have been any member of the England squad, extolling the virtues of the red-rose captain Chris Robshaw. But it wasn't.

Robshaw was the man doing the talking, and he was discussing his opposite number and rival skipper Michael Hooper, with whom he goes eyeball to eyeball on Sunday, when the Wallabies attempt to ransack Twickenham for the second time in three years and condemn their hosts to weeks, perhaps months, of painful self-analysis.

There are good reasons why Robshaw sees Hooper as a serious threat, both in the individual sense and in the wider context of England taking this one last chance to claim a major Southern Hemisphere scalp before next year's home World Cup; a tournament in which they will find themselves sharing a nasty-looking pool with Australia, the two-time champions.

Most of those reasons were blazingly apparent when the man from the northern suburbs of Sydney first announced himself to the Twickenham crowd in the autumn of 2012.

He was nothing short of brilliant that day, but as he has added significantly to his repertoire over the past couple of seasons, he is now indisputably an open-side specialist of the highest quality.

Which is not a description that sits comfortably with Robshaw, according to his many critics.

Hooper is the latest in a long line of wondrous Wallaby open-side operators stretching back a quarter of a century or more.

Simon Poidevin and David Wilson were both World Cup winners; Phil Waugh and George Smith went within a Jonny Wilkinson drop goal of emulating them; David Pocock was out-performing the maestro McCaw until injuries brought the high-flying turnover specialist crashing to earth.

"They've produced some pretty good No7s, the Wallabies," Robshaw conceded.

"I remember Laurie Fisher [the former Brumbies coach, now working in the Premiership with Gloucester] coming to Quins a few years ago.

"He talked about Smith and Pocock, about the way the Aussies looked at things in that position, and he had some interesting things to say.

"Hooper is their man now and we have to be extremely efficient at shutting him down. But it's a team thing, a team responsibility. When we're opposite one another, yes, it's a job for me. But it's a job for all of us to handle their key players."

Robshaw does not believe England are on the skids following the disappointments of this autumn series, but he does not think there is too much mileage in attempting to insult the intelligence either.

"I wouldn't say we've gone backwards, but we haven't moved forwards at the pace we were moving during the last autumn series and this year's Six Nations," he confessed.

"We have some great things in place, but those of us in game-leading roles haven't quite exerted the required control.

"There's a lot riding on this game. A lot depends on us winning, and the manner in which we do it.

"If we lose, we'd have to view this as a poor campaign."

- Independent