Quade Cooper will officially test his reconstructed knee for the first time on Saturday - but a desperate airport dash has already seen the Wallabies playmaker take a significant leap forward on the comeback trail.
Instincts took over on Thursday morning when Cooper was forced to rush to make his flight from Brisbane to Cairns with the Queensland Reds.
With the final call announcement ringing through the public address system, the enigmatic five-eighth raced 500m from one end of the airport to the other.
"They said the plane was going to leave without us so we had to run for the gate," Cooper told AAP on Friday.
"I started running and I thought 'I'm not supposed to run', so then I started walking but we kept getting calls over the speaker: 'This is the last call' and we were right down the other end (of the airport).