'Swoop' joins the ranks of Wallaby centurions
By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former Australia coach Robbie Deans once described Adam Ashley-Cooper as the glue that held the Wallabies together and rarely has the versatile back's ability to bring coherence to the side been needed more than in his 100th test.
The fallout from the row over texts allegedly sent by Kurtley Beale about a team official in June have left the Wallabies in crisis and coach Ewen McKenzie clinging to job by his finger nails ahead of Saturday's test against New Zealand.
If the Wallabies respond at Lang Park with the sort of backs-to-the-wall performance that the more optimistic Australians are hoping for, you can be sure Ashley-Cooper will be at the heart of it.
The 30-year-old has mostly taken a back seat to more spotlight-hungry team mates in the nine years since he made his test debut against South Africa in extraordinary circumstances in Perth in 2005.
While the more vaunted talents have all suffered fluctuations in form or fortune, however, Ashley-Cooper has rarely had a bad game whether at fullback, in the centres or on the wing, where he will start on Saturday.
Such reliability has earned him nicknames like "Mr Fix-it" or "Mr. Dependable" in the media but to his team mates it is "Swoop" who will join George Gregan, Nathan Sharpe, George Smith, Stephen Larkham and David Campese as an Australian test centurion.
"Adam has had a remarkable career and he deserves the accolades which come with joining what is an extremely elite group of players to have played 100 games for Australia,” McKenzie said this week.
"It's a massive honour and a true testament of his ability to play at a consistently high level over such a long period of time."
MEAT PIE
Ashley-Cooper is related to the aristocratic British family of the Earls of Shaftesbury but grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales just north of Sydney.
After an early flirtation with tennis, he followed his Wallaby uncle Graham Bond into union with the ACT Brumbies, earning his first cap after just three Super Rugby starts.
Famously, he was about to settle down to watch the match with a meat pie and a beer when he was sent scuttling back to the dressing room to suit up after Clyde Rathbone was injured in the warm-up.
He was to wait nearly two years for his second cap but from then on has been a virtual ever present in the green and gold, playing every single minute of the 2011 World Cup campaign, for example.
Some of his best moments include a brilliant individual try when Australia beat New Zealand in Hong Kong in 2010 and the winner against the British and Irish Lions in the second test victory in Melbourne last year.
Seven of his 28 tries have come against the All Blacks and he would dearly love to wrest back the Bledisloe Cup from the New Zealanders next season -- it is already lost this year -- before he heads abroad after the World Cup.
He did achieve one career goal this year, though, securing the Super Rugby title with the New South Wales Waratahs after scoring two tries in a Man of the Match performance in the final against the Canterbury Crusaders.
Off the field, Ashley-Cooper has been a prominent in promoting the gay rugby World Cup, the Bingham Cup, which earned a glowing plaudit from rugby's most prominent gay player, former Wales international Gareth Thomas.
"If the world were full of Adam Ashley-Coopers... then there wouldn't be a problem in sport," he said.
(Editing by John O'Brien)
