They've hailed the energy of their younger teammates, but NSW Waratahs flankers Michael Hooper and Ned Hanigan are intent on making more personal impact in this year's Super Rugby tournament.
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The Tahs' team for their season-opener on Saturday against the Stormers features a cluster of young, relatively inexperienced players and a handful of old hard heads.
The starting side includes returning centre Kurtley Beale (110 Waratahs caps), prop Paddy Ryan (91), five-eighth Bernard Foley (87), captain and openside flanker Hooper (80), and fullback Israel Folau (75).
At the opposite end of the scale, two forwards are set to make their Super debut off the bench in prop Harry Johnson-Holmes and lock Nick Palmer.
Starting centre Lalakai Foketi has played just two games for the Rebels, while prop Shambeckler Vui and his former Force colleague and halfback Mitch Short also have little Super experience.
"In terms of the young players, they are bringing new energy and new excitement," Hanigan said.
"If you get an opportunity you are going to grab it with both hands and those guys are definitely going to do it."
Hanigan won 12 Test caps - 10 of them as a starter - in his first full season of senior rugby in 2017, when he was used as a blindside flanker by Wallabies coach Michael Cheika.
He is also happy to line up at lock, but playing at No.6 Hanigan wants to improve in the crucial contact zone.
"As a six, it's probably something that you can bring to your game, hitting rucks and napalming everything and belting blokes around the field, strong carries, things like that," Hanigan said.
"You just need to do more of that and more often."
Hooper plans on being a bit more selective in his efforts than previous years when he tried to inject himself into almost every breakdown.
'"Picking my times better in order each thing I do to have an impact on the game would be nice rather than running (all the time)," he said.
"I don't have that in my legs anymore, so maybe just having a better impact in more things.
"It's something that I can definitely improve on, impact, and maybe in the back-end parts of the game you may have more energy in the tank to do something and then you are also helping the players around you."
Australian Associated Press
