Tom Hooper makes his Super Rugby debut for the ACT Brumbies

The 21-year-old made his Super Rugby debut for the ACT Brumbies on Saturday night against the Crusaders in Christchurch with the Trans-Tasman bubble allowing his parents, partner and aunty to be field-side.

The talented lock took to field at Christchurch Stadium in the 71st minute. While it was a long way from the fields at Bathurst and Saint Stanislaus' College where he played in his younger years, Hooper didn't mind.

"I think it was a blessing in disguise that debut away from home. I just sort of could focus on my game and focus on doing my job for the team," he said.

"It's probably good I was away from all my friends because they weren't making too much ruckus in the crowd ... so that sort of took [those] nerves out of it."

Hooper's debut allowed him to cross paths with Crusaders player Sam Whitelock, a player he said he looked up to and admired when he was growing up.

Whitelock is the most capped All Blacks lock of all time.

Hooper made the move to from Bathurst to Canberra after graduating from Stannies to play for the Tuggeranong Vikings. He went on to graduate from the Brumbies pathway program, but he almost chose somewhere else to begin his senior career.

"I was planning on going to Sydney originally, so I was glad I made the decision to go to Canberra. It's a big country town which made me feel at home," he said.

"I'm only three hours away from Bathurst so it's not too bad. On the weekend I got to debut so you know, sort of made all those sacrifices moving away from home worth it."

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The Brumbies were two tries down when Hooper took the field, before they clawed their way back to within reach of a draw. They narrowly missed a conversion to go down 31-29 and secure one point.

Hooper said the words of Brumbies forwards' coach Laurie Fisher were ringing true when he came onto the field.

"Fisher said before the game that you sort of get thrown into the deep end and you've got to see if you can swim, but I'd probably have it no other way," Hooper said.

"I think a few of the New Zealand fans would have probably wrote us off at that stage, but we still had that belief. [The] pressure was on but the boys got around me and made sure all I had to do was just do my job for the team.

"I think every every kid going up in Australia wants to play New Zealand teams, let alone the Crusaders who have the pick of the bunch."

Heading into two more games across the ditch, the lock said his job moving forward would be whatever the Brumbies needed to secure two wins on the tour but he hoped to get more minutes on the field.

"My goal is to just help out the team however I can. Whether that means I'm not playing and I'm just holding a tackle bag over here in the freezing cold or whether I'm getting on the field," Hooper said.

"It's good to test yourself against the best and then from there you can just grow in confidence and hopefully I can do that and ... climb the rungs in the ladder from there."

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