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The Roar

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Let the ball sing and watch the Wallabies go, says Jones

2nd November, 2007
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Just like Shane Warne inspired a new generation of leg-spinners, the Wallabies’ boring style of play has bred an era of ho-hum rugby in Australia.

So says Alan Jones, who insists he is the coaching wizard with the magic wand to snap the Wallabies out of the doldrums.

Making a better fist of selling himself than John Howard or Kevin Rudd, Jones probably picked up more votes than either as well on the opening day of his own election campaign.

Immediately after announcing he had formally applied for the Wallabies coaching job on Friday, Jones went to work – and winning the support of his future charges was clearly high on the agenda.

Rather than bemoan a lack of depth like John Connolly often did during his 18-month reign, Jones – a man’s man who thrives on redirecting wayward talent – was adamant Australia had the players to once again rule the rugby world.

It is the way, Jones believes, that these players have been asked to play the game which has led to the Wallabies’ fall from grace.

“We don’t have a problem with players. In fact, one of the most outstanding assets that Australia has at the moment is its surfeit of very young and gifted people as forwards and as backs,” the influential broadcaster said.

“I’ve looked at them and I’ve watched them and I’ve seen that over the last 18 months and I have written and I have said that that isn’t a difficulty.

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“The difficulty is what we do with these players. How we harness those resources and how we maximise that potential.

“Sport is a very imitative discipline. Once Shane Warne started getting wickets as a spin bowler every young kid wanted to be a spin bowler.

“Young kids imitate what the national side is doing. If the national side is doing things well, then the game is strong right throughout the country.

“We are coming into an environment now where Queensland finished last in the Super 14, NSW were second-last, between them they won five games and we’ve been eliminated in the quarter-final of the World Cup.

“My view is, and I have articulated this for some time and I wrote about it prior to the World Cup, that I have been for a long time concerned about the way in which the game is being played and my argument is that you can’t play the game off the ground and continue to win, and that’s been our undoing.

“Poor Stephen Larkham has played 10 years and now he looks like a mummy because every time he goes out he’s strapped up almost to the neck.

“What we have to try and do is try and release what is a prodigious talent that we have out wide so that the backs are going to play with the ball and use the football.

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“There are several reasons for doing this. One is that it helps you to win matches and it helps you score tries.”

Central to that so-called “prodigious talent” that is the Australian backline is winger Lote Tuqiri, a strike weapon Jones described as a seriously under-utilised performer who may be better in the centres than on the wing.

The 66-year-old radio king claimed his proposal to let the ball sing like it did when the brilliant Mark Ella guided the Jones-coached Wallabies to the 1984 Grand Slam had already excited some Australian players.

“You’ve got to be clear in the strategy. You’ve got to be clear to them and I’ve already discussed this with players,” he said. “They have rung me. I haven’t rung them.

“And these kids are gifted. It wouldn’t take too many coaching sessions to explain that we are going to emphasise more ball over ruck ball and, in doing that, players will respond because they are all going to get a use of the ball.

“They just need to be given a way in which they play the game that’s going to make the scoreboard tick over.

“Those kids are very ambitious people. They’re being paid high salaries. They have a high expectation. Whoever is in charge of the national team has to minister to that expectation.”

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Jones’s final plea to voters – i.e, the selection committee headed by ARU chief John O’Neill – was to be imaginative when picking Connolly’s successor.

“What those people choosing the next coach have got to decide is whether they are capable and willing to pick a person who is game to open the envelope and go somewhere else,” he said.

“Because if you do what you did last year, you’ll get last year’s result – with South Africa winning the World Cup and the Super 14s.

“God help us if we get last year’s result. Now come on. We’ve got talent coming out of our ears.”

Like Howard and Rudd, Jones will know just how he has polled later this month after O’Neill, ARU high-performance unit manager Pat Howard and co assess all the candidates.

Undoubtedly, though, there has been a swing in his favour.

© 2007 AAP

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