By Garth Hamilton
May 7th 2008 @ 1:12am
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Another rebuilding year for the Queensland Reds
With the Reds reduced to a spoiling role at the tail end of this year’s Super 14, Queensland fans have been asked once again to look to the long term for better days.
Has Phil Mooney done enough with the Reds this year to rekindle hope amongst the team’s supporters and will 2009 be the year Queensland really turn it around?
Firstly some basic questions.
Are the Reds a better team under Phil Mooney? Undoubtedly so. Can they continue to improve under Mooney? Highly likely.
Mooney appears to be a coach on the rise, someone who is willing to learn and improve whilst also being able to instill confidence in his players.
He is approachable and honest in his assessments of where the Reds are and, despite his apparently strong connection with the coming generation, he maintains something decidedly old school about his demeanour.
With a coach like Mooney now in charge, it would seem the real problems facing the Queensland Reds rest directly above and below him.
Above, the QRU — an organisation that has in recent years lost the confidence of many senior and junior squad members who looked elsewhere for a greater chance of enjoying success in their playing careers.
Below, the playing squad — a group pruned of its stars and weighed down with a mindset shaped by repeated on field defeats and a sense of hopelessness of it.
The grooming of James Horwill as captain and a selection policy that rewards success rather than extending pensions to faithful servants are actions that will go a long way towards putting right the mental state of the playing squad.
The departure of Chris Latham, great player that he was, will also release a giant albatross from the neck of the developing squad.
For far too long Queensland relied on the individual brilliance of the fullback to the detriment of the team’s growth.
It is imperative now that the QRU ensures their house is in order whilst coach Mooney begins to look outside the squad for players to provide the additional natural talent and physical attributes the side needs to be truly competitive in the Super 14 competition.
Good coaching, even great coaching, cannot make up for a real lack of depth in the squad and nor can it bring anything more out of a player than what he is physically capable of doing.
As faithful and uplifting a servant as the retiring David Croft has been to the Reds, his fortunes as an aspiring international player are almost identical to the fortunes of the Reds as a team of recent years.
There’s always been someone better, someone with that special something in the way they play rugby that can’t be attributed to hard work alone.
No matter how hard he fought it always seemed Croft was fighting up one weight division too many.
Queensland need players who are great at international level, not just great at Super rugby level.
Without some strong recruiting between now and next February, the Reds could face yet another lean year in 2009.
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Terry Kidd said | May 7th 2008 @ 9:35am | Report comment
G’day Garth,
Generally I agree with what you say. Phil Mooney has undoubtably been a successful choice as coach and I hope that the Reds extend his contract another 3 years. I say that because I don’t think the Reds best policy is to look outside or overseas, they don’t need another aging albatross hung around the necks of the young squad. I believe that their best policy is to groom the youth from their academy with possibly the addition of a couple of younger blokes from other franchises ….. Rob Horne, James O’Connor, David Pocock, the Faiingaa twins.
I predict that the Reds will not win more than they lose until 2010, as their young squad matures and the depth develops. In the meantime they need to lose guys like Croft, Roe and Turinui (good performers on their day but now holding out the young guys) and Latham (a great performer but they bacame too reliant upon him).
I think Mooney is very in touch with the young blooming talent in Oz rugby and I think he is best placed to draught them into the Reds and then develop a squad where all the members are about the same age, have no crosses to bear and where they are confident that they will be picked on form rather than reputation.
IMHO that is the future for the Reds, in 2 or 3 years they could be a real force in S14 rugby.
Greg Russell said | May 7th 2008 @ 12:02pm | Report comment
As a NSW fan it almost hurts me to say this, but I feel sorry for the Reds over what they are up against:
* The Broncos and the Storm are both widely regarded as having the best talent identification systems in the NRL, and they both recruit either exclusively (Broncos) or largely (Storm) from Qld youth.
* The AFL has thrown massive resources at youth recruiting in Qld, indeed from memory 8 of the top 10 picks were from Qld in last year’s AFL draft.
So the bottom line is that league and AF are getting the cream of Qld’s footballing talent (let’s be honest: a John Eales of today would end up as an AFL ruckman), and the Reds have to satisfy themselves with the leftovers, ones that they also have to share with the Force and, to a lesser extent, the Brumbies.
Yes, good coaching helps, but there is no substitute for sheer athletic talent, which the Reds are missing out on (with no sign of this stopping).
In NSW this is not such a big problem because of the larger population, the lesser effectiveness of AFL recruiting, and the seemingly greater willingness of talented kids to switch from league to rugby.
That said, let’s no delude ourselves: the Reds are really just Australian rugby’s problems writ largest.
formeropenside said | May 7th 2008 @ 12:22pm | Report comment
The Reds problem has been retention of talent, not identification and development of it.
I mean, a forward pack of Holmes, Moore/Hardman, Blake/Edwards, McMeniman, Horwill/Nathan Sharpe, Elsom/Heenan/Chapman, Croft/Pocock, Richard Brown/Roe are all Queenslanders or brought up here young when unwanted at home (in the case of Blake and Edwards).
In the backs there is Cordingly, Lucas, Barnes, Cooper, Rabbit O’Connor, Drew Mitchell, Jnr Pelesasa, Lote Tuqiri, Digby Ioane, Peter Hynes, and Chris Latham. Both Valentine and Sheehan learned a bit up here too, but I wont claim them.
All Queensland needs is to retain its talent, and its back to the happy days of the 80’s and 90’s all over again.
Spiro Zavos said | May 7th 2008 @ 2:23pm | Report comment
How did Queensland lose James O’Connor? The modern game hasn’t helped Queensland rugby either. They played the England kicking game with big forwards and fast wingers. In the 1980s especially with a referee now dead (he sued me for noting that against the Lions and the Reds when asked whose ball it was to put in the scrum said, ‘It’s our ball (Reds) who was partial to Reds victories, they were hard to beat. There was also a Queenslander spirit that was indomitable. Remember Peter Slattery celebrating a victory of NSW with the shout: ‘It’s great to be an Australian. But it’s better to be a Queenslander!
You get this same Reds spirit from Greg Martin’s commentary.
Somehow I think this Red-eyed approach has been lost with professional rugby and non-Queenslanders playing for the Reds. Having said that I think Phillip Mooney has down a good after the train wreck left by Eddie Jones. Whether they can be a force as they were at the start of Super Rugby in the next couple of years is problematical I think.
El Capitan said | May 7th 2008 @ 2:43pm | Report comment
The Reds will rise from the ashes and Mooney is the coach to do that. The way he has delivered this team this year from the disaster of Jones (who was a has been and should have never coached the Reds last year IMO) has been a godsend for the players and fans. The Reds are playing exciting running rugby and have a lot of young talent, that will hopefully stay with them. Mooney has brought pride back to the Jumper, something that is hard to achieve with professional rugby these days.
An area that the QRU lacks is picking up talent from regional areas of Queensland. There are so many skilled kids in regional queensland that play for the love of the game, than rather trying to get picked for a contract. Same goes for senior players. If they gave some of these players a chance, the playing stocks may be better, and most players will stay loyal to the state.
I’m sure as the annual derby of the Tahs and Reds comes around, there will be players jumping out of their skin. The passions that Mardo and Buddah ooze will be out in full force, and nothing will lift the state than to see the Tahs get knocked out by the Reds from the finals!
Harry said | May 7th 2008 @ 6:48pm | Report comment
Firstly I can’t let that shot by Spiro at Bob Burnett go undefended - unless Spiro is suggesting the regular hidings (not note, “hard to beat”) - home and away - handed out to NSW in the 80’s and 90’s were largely down to biased Ballymore reffing. And it was against Wales in 1978 that Bob said that, not the Lions.
As various astute writers note above - I agree with everything Garth said - the adminsitration has been bad at the QRU and with the rise of the Force and the efficiency of the Storm and Broncos league scouts means the Reds have found it difficult to expand their pool outside the traditional GPS and TAS schools, and even then they have been pillaged very effectively by the Force and also now AFL (is that right, 8 out of the top 10 picks in the AFL draft were from QLD? Surely not!)
Also bear in mind that the last five years have seen no real world class players (Latham, often injured, excepted) at the Reds after a 30 year run of players like Gould, Tune, Little, Horan, the Herberts, Lynagh, Maclean, Loane, Shaw, Wilson, Roche, Peter Maclean, Duncan Hall, MacCall, Handy, Lawsons, Pilecki etc. Oops almost forgot one J. Eales in that list.
I thought at the start of the season - particuarly after the Highlandes game - that the Reds would be about where they are now in the table. I think its a real shame that Blake is going as I thought with Edwards starting we were just beginning to see the best of him. Same with Moore.
I agree that realistically 2010 is the best we can hope for a Reds side that wins more than it loses - and even then there is a real danger that players like Cooper will be lost and we’ll be back in the “rebuilding” phase.
Taylor Bridge said | May 7th 2008 @ 9:37pm | Report comment
Reds to rebuild need lots of young boys at the super 14 games and they are not there. Certainly not in comparison to AFL and the Broncos. The Reds fans of tomorrow are waning. Some imagination is required . But thats not there either.
When the older Reds fans such as me see thousands of empty seats ( maybe 30000 empty seats) ,and so few children I think that even if admission was $3 for children under 15 and $10 for 15 -17, it would be worth it to generate some excitement in their minds,. If they cant see any Rugby on free to air at this time of year then as all they see is AFL and league. Are there any marketing people employed at QRU who understand that when you water the vine you get a harvest.
There are that many liquor outlets at Suncorp that the environment is excessively adult focussed. The attraction that was at Ballymore is no longer there for young teens now. Imagine converting just one of theose large corner bar areas to an under 18 zone where young people could meet up before the rugby and feel that there was a place for them . A skerrick of imagination could mak eit a rugby intense exciting meet place before the game and swing the image for the next generation if it has not drifted to what they are fed on commercial TV.
how obvious is the solution?. Go the Reds but the dimensions we are exploring to grow the game are still in feet and inches.
westy said | May 7th 2008 @ 11:38pm | Report comment
El Capitan….heresy ,,,,but you must understand the Waratahs do not necessarily have as much traction as Western Sydney’s team or the state team anymore.. The Reds v Tahs is just another super 14 game . Its importance is the Tahs must win to make the semis or get a home semi..No more no less despite any former artificial hype . Any satisfaction the Reds get from beating the Tahs will be the same as any bottom team mucking up a higher teams aspirations.Ancient enmity may bring more satisfaction that is all.
Harry said | May 8th 2008 @ 9:48am | Report comment
Taylor Queensland’s demise as a rugby power can be pretty much matched to the decision to move from Ballymore to Lang park. Agree there is no kid friendly facilities there - further to your idea, they should move at least one S14 fixture a year bak to Ballymore and play it on a Sunday afternoon, with the beer garden etc and kids allowed onto the oval after the game. But that would require some imagination and thinking from a marketer who actually has a connection with the sport, anyway the contract/brand guidelines/operating module or some such jibberish no doubt don’t allow it …
Ben said | May 22nd 2008 @ 3:14am | Report comment
Harry, the Reds sponsorship agreement with the Reds actually hinges on the Reds playing all there home matches at Suncorp Stadium.
Whether this is a good thing or bad thing i dont know yet.
stillmissit said | May 23rd 2008 @ 11:18am | Report comment
I believe that Phil Mooney is in a great position to take over from Robbie Deans after the 2011 WC. He is one of those people who can build a team. Unlike his predecessor who took a team(Wallabies) and rode them into the dirt.
His team are producing some great individual performances, Horwill is Wallaby bound as is Barnes and Turinui and Hynes are playing some of there best rugby for ages. This Queensland team is based around the highly talented bunch that are coming through now and I think Mooney is the man to get the best out of them.
This will end up being the strongest Qld team ever. Remember you HIHF.