Previous Australia commander Michael Hooper said it was "pretty overwhelming" to make his worldwide sevens debut in his country's 12-0 win against Fiji.
The 32-year-old came on as a substitute for Nathan Lawson with under three of the 14 minutes left to play in the Hong Kong Sevens game on Friday. Hooper is focusing on a spot in Australia's sevens crew for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. "I came on and did what I needed to do," said Hooper. "I just needed to enter and polish it off for us.
"I have an abundance of games added to my repertoire, so I'm attempting to incline toward that. "The truth of the matter is, I'm totally new at this so finding out where I can affect the game, facing Fiji cycle one is really overwhelming. So I'll simply make it stride by step from here." Hooper has played multiple times for Australia XVs yet was avoided with regards to the 2023 World Cup crew prior to endeavoring to get a sevens spot for Paris.
"He got along admirably," said Australia lead trainer John Manenti. "He came on and did what he truly does pretty well, steal, so that was really huge. "He's been striving to arrive. We said all along, nothing would have been given, he needed to acquire everything. "You could see the young men that were on before him playing very great footy so he must continue battling and continue to show what him can do."