{"id":441637,"date":"2026-01-27T22:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T22:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441637\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T22:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T22:50:08","slug":"tupous-match-winning-performance-hooper-faces-wait-over-potential-long-term-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441637\/","title":{"rendered":"Tupou&#8217;s match-winning performance, Hooper faces wait over potential long-term injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-2425b0\">With club competitions returning across Europe, there were plenty of Wallabies in the thick of the action over the past seven days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">On top of this, several continued to shine in Japan as the top teams start to separate themselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stan.com.au\/watch\/sport\/rugby\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Rugby.com.au breaks down the best from the weekend that was.<\/p>\n<p>France<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Taniela Tupou continues to endear himself to Racing 92 after a spectacular cameo off the bench in Racing 92&#8217;s 35-34 win over Lyon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Tupou came on in the 51st minute and made an immediate impact with a turnover, before tries in the 67th and 74th minutes gave them the lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">A late penalty helped seal the win, with the prop making it four tries from three appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Jordan Uelese scored off the bench for Montpellier; however, they just fell short 30-27 to Toulon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Irae Simone and Alex Newsome won the battles of the Aussies as Clermont bested Tolu Latu&#8217;s La Rochelle 32-27, who were without Will Skelton.<\/p>\n<p>England<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">There are significant concerns for Tom Hooper after a nasty knee injury saw him leave the field early in Exeter&#8217;s 8-3 loss to Bristol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Hooper&#8217;s leg buckled after a cleanout went wrong, with the Wallaby still awaiting the results from a scan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cWe&#8217;re still waiting on the scan results. Tom went in for scans yesterday [Monday]. That&#8217;s really going to let us know,&#8221; Exeter boss Eob Baxter said (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/sport\/rugby\/rugby-news\/exeter-chiefs-injury-update-ikitau-10779500\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">DevonLive)<\/a> &#8220;He&#8217;s tender, he&#8217;s sore, so really it&#8217;s finding out the extent of the ligament damage and which ones he&#8217;s done, [the MCL or the ACL].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">It was better news for Izaia Perese, who impressed on his Leicester return. The centre completed a dominant win with a 74th minute try to seal a 34-7 win over Harlequins, with fellow Aussie James O&#8217;Connor also coming off the bench for his first appearance since November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Josh Kemeny also found the line for Northampton, scoring and setting up another in the Saints&#8217; 43-29 win over Sale.<\/p>\n<p>Japan<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Isaac Lucas continues to inspire BlackRams Tokyo as the fullback lights up the Japan Rugby League One competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Lucas finished the day with seven tackle busts as they accounted for Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars 33-24.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">He was joined in kind by fellow standout Samu Kerevi, breaking eight tackles in Urayasu D-Rocks&#8217; 32-23 loss to Mie Honda Heat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Bernard Foley&#8217;s Kubota Spears tasted their first defeat of the year, going down 24-20 to Brave Lupus Tokyo after a last minute Richie Mo&#8217;unga try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With club competitions returning across Europe, there were plenty of Wallabies in the thick of the action over&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,97542,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-441637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-aussies-abroad","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}