{"id":788538,"date":"2026-10-01T12:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788538\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T12:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:38:13","slug":"rob-baxter-explains-reason-behind-tom-hoopers-wallabies-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788538\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Baxter explains reason behind Tom Hooper\u2019s Wallabies release"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published: 3 hours ago | 1 October 2026 04:40 EDT
Updated: 1 hour ago | 1 October 2026 07:36 EDT <\/p>\n

mens<\/p>\n

gallagher-premiership<\/p>\n

Tom Hooper of the Wallabies in action during a Wallabies training session at Hale School on September 25, 2026 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Janelle St Pierre\/Getty Images) \"Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Exeter Chiefs<\/a> boss Rob Baxter has received a boost with the news that Wallaby flanker Tom Hooper has been left out of Les Kiss\u2019s squad for the two Tests with New Zealand<\/a> and will be back in the country to make his first appearance of the season against Newcastle<\/a> Red Bulls<\/a> next weekend.<\/p>\n

Baxter said that Hooper, who was a key player for the Chiefs<\/a> in their run to the Gallagher PREM Final last season, isn\u2019t available for tomorrow night\u2019s trip to the Rec to face Bath, but he will be back in the country in time for the visit of the Red Bulls to Sandy Park a week on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Hooper, 25, who played in the Wallabies\u2019 42-38 victory over the Springboks in Perth, has been replaced by uncapped utility forward Toby Macpherson for the two games against the All Blacks<\/a> after Baxter struck an agreement with Kiss, who will have him available for the Nations Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom will be flying back next week, so there\u2019s the potential for him to be available against Newcastle next Sunday. When you have players with the 30-game limit, which Tom has reached, we sit down and have a lot of communication with Les Kiss about how we\u2019re going to manage his programme over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to say Australia<\/a> have been fantastic in terms of where they were prepared to give Tom some rest periods. The rest periods he had actually increased because he picked up that relatively minor shoulder injury. We put forward a process to Premiership Rugby about how Tom would be managed. That included the rest we give him, and the rest Australia give him.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Gallagher Premiership<\/p>\n

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Bath <\/p>\n

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Exeter Chiefs <\/p>\n

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\u201cOne of the things we agreed was post his last Test, under Regulation 9. The reason Tom has been stood down is that these next games are outside the Regulation 9 window. Our agreement on Tom\u2019s rest was that he would then have a break now after the last international, come back and be available for us, and then return to Australia in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll then have an extended break during the Six Nations<\/a> period, so he\u2019ll almost have a full pre-season break then. All we\u2019ve really done is shift his pre-season to a different time of the year. That\u2019s all been agreed with Rugby Australia, Premiership Rugby and ourselves. I think everyone has been very, very good with the process, including Tom,\u201d said Baxter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 3 hours ago | 1 October 2026 04:40 EDT Updated: 1 hour ago | 1 October 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}