By Bruce Ross -
November 13th 2009 @ 2:18am
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Too old at 30? Australian rugby’s scrapheap policy
The Australian rugby coach and his selectors appear to be following a quite deliberate policy of favouring emerging players over those with significant international playing experience.
One consequence of this is that the Australian Super 14 franchises are being denuded of senior players who traditionally mentor and guide those who are just learning their craft.
In the Test against Ireland, the Wallabies do not have a single player aged 30 or more in their starting fifteen. Their opponents have eight, a majority of the team!
The average age of our 22-man squad is 25.2 years; theirs is 27.5. Our oldest starter is 28.
Consider the average age of the most recent teams of the top ten rugby countries, i.e., Tri-Nations, Six Nations plus Argentina.
Every other side’s players are more than a year older than the Wallabies. And every other country has two or more starting players who are at least 30 years old.
Rugby is an unusually complex game. It takes players years to achieve real competency.
And yet we are seeing a new generation of talented youngsters rushed from school into professional football and then on to the international level. A minority manage to establish themselves at the top, but I wonder whether even they achieve their full potential.
In their development years, they should be playing in an environment where they can dominate instead of one where they constantly struggle to survive.
Because of the centralised control of the sport by the ARU, the premature discarding of experienced players has extremely adverse impacts at the Super 14 levels and even down through the clubs.
The central body dictates how much players can be paid by the franchises who are basically mendicants surviving on handouts from the centre. It is, therefore, only those players who are on ARU contracts who earn large incomes.
Once taken off the national list players have little choice but to round out their careers in Europe or in the Bermuda Triangle of Japanese rugby.
The effect of this is that all their accumulated wisdom and experience is lost to their Super 14 teams and their clubs – and basically to Australian rugby.
And then people say that we don’t have a large enough talent pool in Australia.
The main way in which the great minds who control our sport have dealt with this problem is to buy in so-called rugby league marquee players who then spend years trying to master the fundamentals of our sport.
How can young players benefit by playing with extravagantly paid blow-ins who know vastly less than they do?
It has been observed that rugby is basically war without the guns.
When you’re forced to slog it out in the trenches, who would you want with you? A grizzled battle-scarred veteran or an over-excited kid who believes all the hype and publicity generated about him?
Small wonder that we can’t string wins together.
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Frank O'Keeffe said | November 13th 2009 @ 2:51am | Report comment
An interesting article Bruce, with some well articulated points conveyed.
However, respectfully I disagree with you.
I think a huge problem with Australian rugby is its tendency to hold on to its senior members for too long. Mortlock is an example of a player who’s slowing down, yet has tremendous experience. Please note the Mark Ella article I keep on referencing – http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/a-bridge-too-far-for-mortlock/story-e6frg7t6-1225706240115 – there Ella discusses the talents of Cross, Ioane, Ashley-Cooper etc. In fact Australia has some decent depth at #13. Yet there is portion of people who think Mortlock should be retained.
I don’t know who should be picked between Pocock and Smith. McCaw was voted MOTM in Tokyo, which suggests McCaw won the battle of the breakdown against Pocock, but George Smith was quiet against Moody on the weekend. In fact Smith has been pretty quiet all year. I certainly don’t think we’ll see George Smith play like he did ala 2000-2002 in the next few years. But then again, if he’s better than Pocock he deserves to be in the side.
How many 30+ players were there in the 1991 World Cup side anyway? That side was choc-full of youth like Kearnes, Daly, McKenzie, Horan, Little, Eales, Ofahengaue. All those guys hadn’t played any longer than three seasons. Even the holy trinity of Campese, Farr-Jones and Lynagh – I don’t think they were older than 30. I can’t be bothered to look up the dates of birth, but Simon Poidevin is the only one I’d assume was older than 30.
Australia has a problem holding onto players if you ask me. Each season it seems as if Australia is going backwards and backwards. If there’s going to be any forward progress, it might as well be with a band of youngsters. I’m actually struggling to think of a few senior Aussie players who can really lead these Wallabies anyway. Anyway have lacked strong leadership since Gregan retired. Elsom’s a good choice for captain, he’s 25 or 26 I think, and he did well on the weekend against England. The older players like Smith, Mortlock, Sharpe etc, haven’t been a huge help to the Wallabies this year. I actually sense more direction and leadership from Berrick Barnes, a fairly young player, than any of those three players.
I fear Australia will cling onto Giteau too much in the future. He’s now being treated as a senior player, and almost a protected species. To me his form hasn’t been great this year, yet he’s paid as tremendous amount by the ARU and I guess they want a return on their investment. I can foresee Australia holding onto Giteau for many many years, regardless of how well he plays.
I guess in summation Australia really needs to go for youth right now, which is exactly what Robbie Deans is doing right now.
Frank O'Keeffe said | November 13th 2009 @ 3:00am | Report comment
“Anyway have lacked strong leadership since Gregan retired”
Sorry it’s too late to edit my post. I meant to say ‘Australia have lacked strong leadership since Gregan retired.’
CraigB said | November 13th 2009 @ 8:19am | Report comment
Bruce – I think looking at a point in time is misleading. Go back to 2007 and Australia had Gregan, Larkham, Latham, Cordingley, Mortlock, Staniforth. The fact they are all about the same age meant they were going to retire together.
sheek said | November 13th 2009 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
As CraigB said,
it was only two years ago we hung on too long with senior players. Part of the problem back then was that we didn’t trust our youth, or our development structures.
Two years later, & we’ve lost Mortlock & Sharpe through injury. So the influx of youngsters has partly been thrown onto Deans.
Furthermore, the senior guys weren’t producing results, so Deans really had no alternative but to turn to youth.
I think these things do go in cycles. Although for most of the professional era, we haven’t been in a hurry to bring on youth, partly because the old-timers are hanging around longer! And partly because I think we’ve lost our way with development structures.
Peter K said | November 14th 2009 @ 4:58pm | Report comment
We should play our best players but when they are so close to decide then go for younger than 30 with the the idea that the 30+ will not improve but the younger guy will.
Who do we have over 30 that deserve to be in the team.
Mortlock , yes if not injured. Mortlock when he did play there this year had more impact and was more effective than Digby. But his body seems to be breaking down due to how hard he plays. If Digby imporves then he may not deserve another chance though.
Sharpe yes and no but he is injured. If every player who is injured was available then he does not deserve to be in the starting team.
Vickerman, yes yes yes, and pay whatever he needs / wants for 2010.
Smith – NO not on current form. He has been average to poor most games this year. Outplayed by most opponents. He is making a lot of mistakes and giving away a lot of stupid penalties. Robinson has pilfered more ball this year than he has, enough said.
TommyM said | November 15th 2009 @ 10:46am | Report comment
In what way did Mortlock have more impact than Digby this year? Digby had the most metres gained in the entire S14 this year despite missing much of it through injury…
Cattledog said | November 14th 2009 @ 8:48pm | Report comment
Some good points, Bruce, although many seem to disagree with you, preferring youth. Quite frankly, I think your military analogy has merit although it’s toughness rather than grizzly battle-scarred veterans you want. A tough old bloke will outlast a tough young bloke. He’s more mentaly atuned. However, in Australian rugby sense, I really think a balance has to be found. If the World Cup is the target, then these players are going to have an additional two years of experience behind them. Tours like these are the battlefields for winning the war!
ohtani's jacket said | November 14th 2009 @ 9:02pm | Report comment
The Wallabies in 2006 and 2007 had a mix of senior players and emerging guys. They were more competitive than the current Wallabies side, but still struggled to win the fixtures that Australia is losing now.
It’s a bit simplistic to compare the average Wallaby age to the average Irish age. Ireland’s so-called “Golden Generation” (with a Grand Slam to justify it) are reaching the end of their playing careers. I agree that it would be beneficial to have ex-Wallabies play out their careers in Australia but it’s just not realistic in the modern era.
Bruce Ross said | November 14th 2009 @ 9:37pm | Report comment
The clearest example I can think of of the short-sightedness of Australian rugby officialdom was the disrespect shown to Dan Vickerman, and I know that Robbie Deans can’t be blamed for that. Just because he was a second rower rather than a twinkle-toes or a night-clubbing Leaguie expected to lure their supporters to rugby, he was taken for granted.
I can’t think of another rugby nation that wouldn’t have done whatever was necessary to keep him. Not only was he one of the two best second rowers in the world but you also got your lineout coach and real team leader thrown in for nothing.
TommyM said | November 15th 2009 @ 10:49am | Report comment
In what way did the Australian rugby officialdom disrespect Vickerman? As I understand it, he left becasue he wanted to pursue his studies, not because he was not offered enough money to stay or ‘disrespected’ in some other way. The fact that he is studying and has not taken a big money contract points to this. Please explain.
ohtani's jacket said | November 15th 2009 @ 11:00am | Report comment
Dan Vickerman was one of the two best second rowers in the world?
Bruce Ross said | November 15th 2009 @ 11:55am | Report comment
Tommy, as I understand it Dan was paid considerably less than quite a few of the backs on national contracts. He entered into negotiations on his own account, i.e., without an agent, with the ARU but was not satisfied with what was offered to him and therefore took up the option of studying at Cambridge. And he wouldn’t have been making unreasonable demands. The issue was really about respecting his importance to Australian rugby.
There is no doubt that serious negotiations over contract renewal did take place. On January 22, 2008, the Daily Telegraph commented, “Vickerman is undoubtedly in a position of power in negotiations with the ARU,” and mentioned that he was “being pursued by clubs in Europe and Japan offering as much as $500,000 a year.” Then in April Ewen Mckenzie was quoted as stating that “he was not involved in the machinations of what took place in Vickerman’s contract negotiations.”
I wouldn’t have thought that rating him as “one of the two best second rowers in the world” was a particularly controversial statement, OJ. The other one that I had in mind was obviously Victor Matfield. In 2008 who else would you have rated ahead of Vickerman?