Habana said he “failed abysmally” to crack the sevens code, although he was hampered by issues gaining regular release from his French club, Toulon. Hooper’s own sevens debut has been delayed by calf and Achilles issues.

But Habana, who features in an HSBC-produced documentary chronicling Hooper’s sevens introduction, reckons a player with 125 Test caps, an Australian-record 69 of them as captain, is well positioned for his shot at Paris.

“Hoops has one of the most incredible work rates I have seen from anyone over the past 15 or 20 years,” Habana, an HSBC Global Brand Ambassador, told the Post.

“His leadership qualities, his ability to communicate with teammates and officials, and what he has already achieved on the biggest stages, stand him in very good stead [to succeed in sevens].

“I played against him a number of times, and was gutted he did not make the World Cup squad. I think a player of his ability, and with his leadership skill set, would have been integral to Australia achieving a different outcome [they exited at the pool stage].

“I have tried to share my experience [of a switch to sevens] with him, but it comes down to him putting what he wants onto the field.

“I am extremely excited about his ability to have an impact, and I think he is really well suited to making the transition.”

Habana played two world series tournaments in 2004, a sending off against Uruguay for a high tackle his stand-out memory of a first sevens fling that preceded a wildly successful career.

“Back then, sevens was quite an amateur set-up, and probably seen as a stepping stone for those who wanted to play 15s, or to give players who did not make it in 15s an opportunity to play international rugby,” Habana said.

The 40-year-old scored a record-equalling eight tries in South Africa’s triumphant 2007 Rugby World Cup campaign, and said the warm memories from that tournament – which was “the springboard for my career, and made me the player I became” – overshadowed any lingering disappointment from narrow defeats by Australia and New Zealand, respectively, in the following two global competitions.

Habana missed South Africa’s 2014 Commonwealth Games gold-medal sevens campaign because Mourad Boudjellal, the Toulon chairman, refused to release his star man.

When the express wing finally returned to the shorter code, he discovered a sport vastly different from the one he had played 12 years earlier.

“The professionalism, the speed and the skill set of the current sevens athlete is phenomenal, and many 15s players struggle with the transition,” he said. “The anaerobic and aerobic effort over three days is absolutely brutal.

“My first training session back in sevens, I was absolutely dead after 40 minutes. We had to do another 10-minute fitness block, and I was thinking, ‘what have I done?’.

“Playing sevens, there is nowhere to hide; one slip and you let down the whole team. It was an opportunity to test and prove myself at a different level, but, I think, even if I had made the Olympics squad, I would not have been in the starting team at any point.”

Habana, who launched his Bryan Habana Foundation in 2015 to give “young people with no vision the opportunity to dream big”, believes sevens “is the easiest entry point for any new rugby fan”.

“The atmosphere in stadiums is unmatched, because you have fans from 15 to 20 different nations coming together to watch this fast-paced, thrilling game that gives crowd satisfaction almost every second,” he added.