Summary The Lions opened their 10-match tour with big wins over the Barbarians in Hong Kong.
BRISBANE (AP) - The scene was like a political rally, with Queensland Reds coach Ewen McKenzie giving Quade Cooper his ringing endorsement as the best candidate for No. 10 for more than just this one match against the British and Irish Lions on this tour.
And to back it up, McKenzie selected his intuitive and sometimes erratic playmaker as Reds captain for Saturday s match against the Lions three days before the Wallabies squad is finalized for the test series.
The pair was sitting on an elevated stage, side-by-side, fielding questions from a British media pack curious about Cooper s omission from Australia s initial 25-man squad and gently dropping in their key messages about coaches supporting players, and players needing the coach s support.
The Lions opened their 10-match tour with big wins over the Barbarians in Hong Kong and the Western Force in Perth and Welsh flanker Sam Warburton, back from injury to take over the captaincy, is already talking about finishing unbeaten in Australia.
Warburton has been reminded about a prior result in Brisbane in 1971, when Queensland upset the British and Irish Lions 15-11 in a mid-week match. McKenzie believes his team can repeat that upset, and be one of the few provincial teams ever to have beaten the Lions.
"We ve got a one-off opportunity to go out there in a very unique set of circumstances," said McKenzie, a prop in Australia s 1991 World Cup-winning team and the forwards coach of the Wallaby team which beat the Lions 2-1 in the 2001 series. "Not many teams outside the test teams beat the Lions. You can put yourself in some pretty unique company if you can engineer a result."
Whatever the outcome, the Lions will certainly get more competition against the Reds than in their first two matches, with McKenzie stacking his squad with a dozen test-capped players. Cooper, playing for a chance to cement a recall to national duties, was elevated to the captaincy in the absence of James Horwill and Will Genia two of the seven Reds who re already part of the Wallaby camp preparing for the three-test series starting June 22.
McKenzie has been heavily involved in rebuilding the Reds, harnessing the individual talents like Cooper and Genia, and guiding them to the Super Rugby championship in 2011 only a couple of years after their worst ever season.
"We do our finest work here we ve got a very good success rate playing here," McKenzie said of the 52,000-seat Brisbane venue, which is expected to be a sellout on Saturday and for the first test on June 22. "The bigger the crowd, and the bigger the opponent, we ve done better.
"Quade s been integral to that in the last four years. Has always taken ownership of the gameplan
I can t think of a better guy to run it for us."
Cooper said he s viewing the match from a Reds perspective, rather than as an audition for the one of the six remaining spots in Robbie Deans expanded 31-man Wallabies squad to be finalized on Tuesday.
"I still call this the business end of the tour for the guys who re having an opportunity," Cooper said. "You don t want to get too far ahead of yourself and concentrate on things that may or may not happen.
"For me, it s about doing what I can for the team I m playing with. It wouldn t be doing the game and the jumper justice by concentrating on things you can t control."
The 38-test veteran has been on the selection outer since making his comments about the "toxic" environment in the Wallaby camp last season. James O Connor seems destined to be flyhalf in the first test, and Kurtley Beale has been training with the Wallabies despite being outside the formal squad as he works through a counseling program for the alcohol-related issues.
Cooper said he d support Beale s recall for the Wallabies, regardless of his own selection permutations.
"It ll be good for him to see he s worked himself back into the position that he can get selected for a test match," he said.
"I ll just be happy for him, as a friend, and as a rugby player to see the best players being picked."
The Lions are still working on their combinations and even Warburton knows he s got a lot of ground to make up after missing the first games of the tour with knee injury.
He has helped Wales win Six Nations titles but hasn t tasted a lot of success against Australia, including the third-place playoff loss to the Wallabies at the 2011 World Cup and four losses in 2012. That doesn t dent his confidence when it comes to leading the Lions to their first series win since 1997.
"In 2012, we played them four times and lost three of those games by a whisker," he said. "I like to think we can learn from those experiences, and then throw into the mix Scotland, Ireland and England, the best of those countries, that has now tipped the scales in our favor.
"I am always optimistic and extremely confident that we can do a good job over here."
The Lions got a boost on Friday when Irish prop Cian Healy was cleared of a biting charge following a 2 1/2-hour hearing.
Healy was cited following an incident on Wednesday, when Western Force scrumhalf Brett Sheehan claimed he d been bitten in a ruck in the 17th minute.
Judicial officer Nigel Hampton said Friday there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations and cleared Healy, who still remains in doubt for the remainder of the tour due to an injured left ankle.
"I am glad that it is all over," Healy said. "I was naturally very disappointed that there was a citing in the first place.
"I always maintained that nothing happened and that I had done nothing illegal. The opposition player s arm hit me. It is as simple as that."
