Einstein once defined insanity as “dressing up in a bumblebee outfit and hurling faeces at an anthropomorphic octopus riding a unicycle”.

While this colourful description has been somewhat diluted through translation over the years, its premise is as true today as it was in 1920s pre post-war Germany.

In a nutshell, Einstein’s famous quote is saying that going out of your way to pretend to be something that you’re not, while seeking out eight-legged cephalopods engaged in single-wheeled locomotion, is pretty crazy. To target them with excrement is insane.

Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Reddit Email Share

But is this a fair characterisation of Michael Cheika’s selection of Quade Cooper at number 10 last week for the return match against the New Zealand National Rugby Team? Was it really insanity in the Einsteinian sense?

The short answer is yes, selecting Quade Cooper was crazier than a lobotomised cuckoo strapped to a dog in a hubcap factory. The sort of crazy that would make Vincent Van Gogh sheepishly stitch his own ear back on and become a chartered accountant.

Yet the Quade-lovers would have you believe that the Wallabies’ loss to the National Rugby Team of New Zealand was not entirely Quade Cooper’s fault. They are so blinded by their bias that they fail to see the true impact Cooper had in setting Australian rugby back 40 years in one 48-minute display of wall-to-wall embarrassment.

As another famous Einstein quote says, “There are none so momentarily blind as the one-eyed man in the land of the blind who winks.”

So, the only way to correct the clear biases of our wildling cousins north of the Queensland wall is to present them with facts, stats, and a minute-by-minute breakdown of the game, illustrating each of the moments a Quade Cooper action hammered yet another nail in the Wallaby coffin. A forensic autopsy of the man who single-handedly derailed Australia’s Rugby World Cup dream, if you will.

1 min 17 sec: QC looks smug as he fields a deep kick and boots it back down field.



2 min 15 sec: Wallabies lose an important lineout on their own throw after QC once again fails to jump, lift or sweep.

4 min 3 sec: QC attempts offload to Adam Ashley-Cooper and it GOES OVER THE SIDELINE! Fool!

8 min 48 sec: 12 phases of ineffective forward hit ups barely making the advantage line as QC seagulls out in the backline between the halfback and the inside centre.

11 min 14 sec: Matt Toomua executes a poor cross field kick, probably on the advice of Cooper.

13 min 57 sec: Kepu drops the ball in contact, due to Quade’s sweat still being on the ball.

16 min 12 sec: QC kicks a lucky penalty, but appears to say something to the trainer afterwards, perhaps about government vaccination conspiracies.

21 min 13 sec: A car similar to Cooper’s gets ticketed for being parked in a handicap zone outside Eden Park Stadium.

30 min 43 sec: QC callously fails to make eye contact with a boy in the crowd who may or may not have terminal cancer.



32 min 12 sec: QC flings a wild pass 25 metres to his left – luckily Israel Folau happens to be there to take it on the chest and power 30 metres up the field. Once again QC made to look good by better players being there to catch his passes.

35 min 18 sec: QC knocks on and then appears to complain that he doesn’t “get” Interstellar.

Half time: QC clicks “like” on a Facebook bikini photo of your wife taken on holiday last year in Phuket.

43 min 8 sec: QC fails to prevent Michael Hooper’s head clash.

48 min 23 sec: QC is sent off, having ruined rugby forever.

It is a fact that some in sports fandom are prone to irrational judgements about players for whom they have formed strong, preconceived ideas.

Why can’t the Quade-lovers just realise that this is what they have done with their idol, refusing to accept the hard fact that the Wallabies could have beaten the New Zealand Men’s Open Rugby Team had it not been largely for this man.

His obvious impact on the failure of our forwards to clear the advantage line, take clean lineout ball and control the speed of the ruck, combined with his influence on the other inside backs’ slow service, poor kick execution and dubious handling was there for all to see on Saturday night.



If a long dead German physicist could see it, why can’t you?