The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Rod Kafer to seek an Australian rugby style

18th July, 2017
42
1048 Reads

Former Wallaby Rod Kafer wants Australian rugby to shed its predictability and return to its innovative ways.

Currently a television rugby analyst, Kafer has also taken on an ARU coaching development position and will oversee a national coaching advisory panel.

He’s promised to deliver change.

Kafer says Australian rugby does not have an immediately identifiable game style and must determine what that should be.

“We played a running style of rugby. Is that still relevant today? We have to determine what is the right mechanism for the game at the moment,” said Kafer.

“Australian teams for mine were teams that were inventive and they were innovative, they were creative and that was our point of difference.

“Maybe we’ve just lost that a little bit, we’ve gone to being structured and predictable.

“My own opinion is getting back to that creative nature of the game and being the innovators is something that will probably stand us in good stead.”

Advertisement

He pointed out that teams like the All Blacks and the Hurricanes, who were lauded for attacking play and prolific tryscoring, actually kicked more than other Test and Super teams respectively.

“In Australia, we think about kicking as not something that we wish to promote in the game but for me it’s a core part of an attacking philosophy and a strategy of being creative,” Kafer said.

He will supervise an elite coach development program aimed at improving the capabilities of Australia’s top coaches, with the intention of generating winning teams at Test and Super levels.

Kafer said the national coaching advisory panel would be operating by September.

He will look to include people with knowledge of different areas like health rehabilitation and psychology.

Kafer recognised the need to change the mindset of Australians playing against New Zealand teams, who have recently dominated the Bledisloe and Super games.

“We start to self-perpetuate this idea that it’s difficult to beat New Zealand teams,” Kafer said.

Advertisement

“Everybody talks about it, in the media, we talk about how tough it is and it starts to leech into players and the way they perform and they feel that pressure.

“When we feel pressure our skills start to break down, we drop the ball, miss tackles and we lose matches.

“We’ve got to increase our capacity to deal with pressure and to deliver skills under pressure.”

close