The Queensland Rugby Union is pleased to announce the signing of versatile forward Lachie Hooper for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n
Hooper\u2019s ability to play backrow and lock is part of his appeal for the Queensland Reds\u2019 2027 campaign in Swyftx Super Rugby Pacific.<\/p>\n
Hooper, 22, has trained in the Super Rugby squads of the ACT Brumbies (2025) and NSW Waratahs (2026) to develop the game that earned him Australia Under-20s selection in 2023.<\/p>\n
The younger brother of Wallabies forward Tom Hooper is excited about joining new Head Coach Vern Cotter at the Reds after his productive stint with Northland in New Zealand\u2019s National Provincial Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve noted the way the Blues boys in the Northland squad talk about Vern. He\u2019s firm and there\u2019s that strong \u2018let\u2019s go through \u2018em\u2019 mentality on the field if there is no way around it,\u201d Hooper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve only heard good things about the Reds set-up and I\u2019m excited to work under Vern.\u201d<\/p>\n
While yet to make his Super Rugby Pacific debut, Hooper enjoyed a career highlight in 2025 when making his Brumbies debut beside his brother in the tour game against the British and Irish Lions.<\/p>\n
The 114kg, 1.95m forward has been making his mark as a lineout-jumping openside flanker for Northland this season after previous time at blindside flanker and lock.<\/p>\n
He scored a recent hat-trick of tries against Taranaki and was part of the first Northland team in 48 years to win the Ranfurly Shield with last weekend\u2019s win over Canterbury in Christchurch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NPC is a very physical comp. I\u2019ve always enjoyed putting my head in dark places and I definitely feel my physicality has gone up playing two seasons in NZ,\u201d Hooper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a real benefit to getting some high-quality footy and seeing rugby from a different view.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in the Brumbies and Waratahs programs has also enabled me to learn so much from both coaches and senior players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hooper\u2019s brother Tom has signed a two-year deal with the Reds starting in mid-2028. Joining his brother at the same club has definite appeal for Lachie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s motivation to push my case to stay around longer. We\u2019ve already had chats about who gets the \u201cHoops\u201d nickname. I\u2019m first here so he\u2019ll miss out,\u201d the younger Hooper said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Reds Head Coach Cotter said Hooper\u2019s signing is a positive.<\/p>\n
“I had an eye on him from last year’s NPC. He’s been playing well with Northland this season and he definitely offers good versatility in the forwards,” Cotter said.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN HOOPER<\/p>\n
Position: Backrow-lock<\/p>\n
Height: 195cm<\/p>\n
Weight: 114kg<\/p>\n
Born: 19\/02\/2004<\/p>\n
Place of birth: Bathurst, NSW<\/p>\n
Senior Club: Northern Suburbs, Sydney<\/p>\n
Junior club: Bathurst Bulldogs<\/p>\n
School: Barker College, Sydney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Queensland Rugby Union is pleased to announce the signing of versatile forward Lachie Hooper for the 2027…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,13506,760,85],"class_list":["post-867477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-reds","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867477","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=867477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}