Tom Hooper is available for the Wallabies’ two-Test tour of Argentina after a hairline fracture of his scapula cost him four Tests. The Exeter Chiefs back-rower is one of 19 forwards in Les Kiss’ 34-man squad for Saturday’s opener in San Salvador de Jujuy, Australia’s first Test on Argentine soil since 1997.
The return comes with an expiry date. Hooper and his Exeter team-mate Len Ikitau are expected to go back to the club after the Springboks Test on 27 September, which means both miss the Bledisloe Cup Tests against New Zealand on 10 and 17 October.
So Wallabies fans get a full-strength squad for four weeks, then lose two first-choice players for the two matches that matter most at home. Is that a trade worth making? Tell us in the comments.
Hooper picked up the injury in the July opener against Ireland and sat out the Tests against France and Italy and the two-Test series against Japan. Speaking in camp, he called the layoff “definitely a blessing in disguise” — and the workload numbers behind that explain why.
“It felt nasty at the time, but it just needed some time to settle down before going into the weights programme,” the 25-year-old said.
A hairline scapula is one of those injuries that does not look like much and rules out everything that matters. You cannot lift in the lineout, you cannot take contact on that side, and you cannot load the shoulder in the gym — which for a 6ft 6in lock-flanker is basically the whole job. Sitting it out for eight weeks was the only option that ended with him on a plane to Jujuy.
Rugby Australia put a figure on the load: since the start of the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season, Hooper has played 51 matches and just under 3,500 minutes. His first year in England ran to 23 appearances, 22 of them starts, and finished with Exeter in the Gallagher PREM final. He was named in the official PREM Team of the Season.
READ ALSO: Wallabies vs Argentina: the test Ewen McKenzie is waiting for
What Tom Hooper gives Les Kiss in Argentina
Hooper covers blindside and second row, which is exactly why he keeps getting on planes. Captain Harry Wilson (No 8, Queensland Reds) and openside Fraser McReight are the settled pair in the back row, with Rob Valetini and Carlo Tizzano also in the 34. Hooper is the forward who lets Kiss change the shape of his bench without changing the balance of it.
A season of Prem rugby should have sharpened that. Exeter play a heavier, slower-tempo game than the Brumbies did, and Hooper spent 12 months defending mauls against South African, English and Welsh packs rather than New Zealand ones. That is a different set of problems to solve, and Argentina’s forward pack poses the first kind rather than the second.
The Exeter clause Wallabies fans should know about
Hooper extended his Exeter contract this year to the end of 2027/28, after which he joins the Queensland Reds for the 2029 Super Rugby Pacific season. World Rugby’s Regulation 9 obliges clubs to release players for international windows, not for domestic league fixtures — and the Prem season starts the same week as the Springboks Test on 27 September.
“It’s a bit of a back and forth for me for the next couple of years,” Hooper said.
That is the arrangement Rugby Australia has accepted to keep a 23-cap forward in the frame for RWC 2027: a better-conditioned, better-tested player, available only in the windows the regulations protect. It is a defensible call for a squad building towards a home World Cup. It is also why Kiss will name a different back row in October to the one he names this week.
Wallabies v Argentina: dates, venues and kick-off times
The two Tests are for the Puma Trophy, which Argentina have held since 2023. There is no Rugby Championship in 2026 — the tournament has been dropped from the calendar in Nations Championship years — so these are standalone Tests.
| Test | Date (local) | Venue | Kick-off AEST |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Test | Saturday 29 August | Estadio 23 de Agosto, San Salvador de Jujuy | 5.00am Sun 30 Aug |
| Second Test | Saturday 5 September | Estadio Malvinas Argentinas, Mendoza | 7.00am Sun 6 Sep |
After Argentina, the Wallabies face South Africa on 27 September, then New Zealand on 10 and 17 October for the Bledisloe Cup. The November leg of the Nations Championship takes them to Twickenham (England, 8 November), Murrayfield (Scotland, 15 November) and the Principality Stadium (Wales, 21 November), with the finals weekend from 27 November.
Also on the Wallabies: Massimo De Lutiis becomes Wallaby 1000 — and scores on debut.
Squad and fixture details via Rugby Australia. Hooper’s comments were made in a Wallabies media session.
