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He is Australia's longest-serving Wallabies captain and the only four-time player of the year, but Michael Hooper is offering no promises ahead of his impending return from a near-three-month mental health break.
Key points:
- Hooper says it was not easy asking for help during his time out of the game to deal with mental health issues
- After nearly three months off, former skipper Hooper is back ahead of Australia's spring Test series
- Hooper said he was fully behind new captain James Slipper and focusing on enjoying the game again
Speaking for the first time since dramatically exiting the Wallabies camp on the eve of Australia's opening Rugby Championship fixture against the Pumas in early August, Hooper revealed he sought "all types" of help from family, friends, sports therapists and professional counsellors.
In a candid interview, the ironman flanker said that was not easy.
"As a younger man, I viewed asking for help as, I guess, a bit of a weakness. You want to feel like you have it all worked out and I certainly didn't," Hooper said ahead of the Wallabies' opening spring tour Test against Scotland on Saturday.
The 30-year-old singled out his wife Kate for her unwavering support, admitting he struggled to balance the demands of being a new father with life as a travelling rugby star.
"I've been playing the game for a long time, had some great changes in my life happen this year and there were a lot of things running through my head showing up in Argentina, and Argentina wasn't the place where I needed to sort these things out," he said.
"I wanted to be around family. I wanted to be in a place where I could put the time into those things that I needed to put in.
"That doesn't mean that I'm sitting here now completely cured. It's not like that at all. At that point in time, I needed to be somewhere else. That wasn't Argentina.
"I know that's quite vague but, yeah, I'm still getting my head around it. It's not that long ago."
Hooper said telling Wallabies coach Dave Rennie he wanted out was among the most difficult conversations he has endured in his decorated 121-Test career.
"I have high expectations of myself and pulling out of a game is certainly right up there with something I couldn't see myself doing. Of course it was hard," he said.
"It came around suddenly … the beautiful thing about rugby and the hard thing about all sport is there's always the next goal so that you can move on and you can move on quick.
"It was probably exacerbated being overseas away from home but certainly where I'm at, in my career and things like that, you start to look at post-rugby. I've got a family now.
"So there's a lot [more] elements now than being a 22-year-old and pretty much being concerned about yourself and I think that played into it."
Hooper said he is grateful to be living in an era where mental health is more openly spoken about.
"I'll look back on this period and going through it, it's a part of life. It's part of being human, all this stuff, a great time in my life," he said.
The 64-Test Wallabies captain said he was 100 per cent behind new skipper James Slipper and that regaining the leadership was the least of his concerns ahead of his planned comeback in Europe.
While acknowledging playing in a third World Cup next year was a massive lure, even that is not a given as Hooper focuses solely on simply enjoying playing the game again.
"I'm excited. I'm excited to be back at this stage. I'm also realistic knowing that last time I was in here it didn't quite work out," the champion number seven said.
"So I'm back putting myself in this position because I want to be here.
"I've got some great support around me and I'm realistic that there's going to be some really good days, and days that the realities of travel and rugby and stuff are difficult.
"But I think that's part of the whole journey. Part of doing what we do is that whole rollercoaster."
AAP