Champion Wallabies captain Michael Hooper has had insult added to damage in a weird and merciless end to his glittering Tremendous Rugby profession final evening.

The Waratahs shall be left regretting sending out Hooper in such lame style after the Blues ended NSW’s season with a medical 41-12 victory within the opening Tremendous Rugby Pacific quarter-final of 2023.

That included a second of confusion the place Hooper – one in every of Australia’s most-capped gamers of all time – produced a clanger for the ages, taking himself off for a HIA as a result of he thought the referee had ordered him from the sector.

Auckland’s Eden Park as soon as once more proved a burial floor for Australian rugby groups because the Blues put the Waratahs to the sword after a promising begin from the guests on Friday evening.

NSW followers would have been dreaming of busting a near-40-year trans-Tasman hoodoo after a third-minute attempt to lock Ned Hanigan gave the Waratahs a dream 7-0 begin.

Hooper was injured because the Waratahs stoically defended their tryline within the shadows of halftime of their Tremendous Rugby quarter remaining towards the Blues

Hooper then marched off the sector for a HIA believing the referee had ordered him too after copping a knock to the top

Officers needed to seize the Wallabies skipper and inform him that no HIA was required and he might return to the motion

However the Blues piled on 38 straight factors to protect the report of no New Zealand staff shedding a Tremendous Rugby finals match on house turf to Australian opposition for the reason that competitors started in 1996.

The great loss additionally ended Hooper’s adorned Waratahs profession.

With inspirational halfback Jake Gordon cruelly out injured for the primary time all season, Hooper was handed the captaincy arm band in what proved the champion flanker’s 142nd and remaining sport within the sky blue jumper.

With the Waratahs trailing 17-7 late within the first half and defending their very own line, Hooper was spat out of the again of a ruck in apparent ache.

He had collided awkwardly with the Blues pack and suffered a head knock and shoulder stinger on the identical time.

It was then that gamers, referees and commentators have been left puzzled, because the Wallabies skipper merely marched off the sector.

It was later revealed that Hooper thought he heard the referee march him off for a head damage evaluation for a potential concussion.

Officers shortly corralled Hooper and questioned why he was off the sector, with the referee permitting him to return to the fray with out a HIA.

Whereas the second didn’t affect the consequence, it was one other black eye on a dismal approach for the Waratahs champion to bow out.

Former Wallabies star Morgan Turinui was disenchanted in the way in which the Waratahs bowed out of the Tremendous Rugby competitors when it was Hooper’s final sport

Whereas Hooper has retired from Tremendous Rugby, he’s anticipated to characteristic at a 3rd World Cup in France later this yr for the Wallabies

Former Wallabies star Morgan Turinui mentioned Hooper would now enter a grieving course of after giving a lot to his beloved Waratahs. 

‘The Waratahs have been a lot in his life as a human being. He received the farewell, not the one he wished final week, and now it is throughout,’ he mentioned.

‘Generally you are sitting there with the realisation – I bear in mind sitting there with a beer on the sector on the footy stadium with Chris Whittaker and Nathan Gray after his final, simply to try to have that second till we separate once more and do not see one another once more.

‘There’s an enormous emotional reference to Hoops and that sky blue jersey.’

 Whereas the consequence was surprising, Turinui mentioned it was in step with their inconsistent performances all through the season.

‘It is humorous, it was virtually just a little resume for his or her season,’ mentioned Turinui.

‘All their little inaccuracies by the yr got here house to roost.

‘That is finals footy and this was the sport the place it was going to be a constructive season for the Waratahs making the semi or coming sixth – not fairly ok for the excessive expectations we had for them.’