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Recent reports have chronicled Michael Cheika talking about player conditioning, running his ‘Wallatahs’ and ‘Guest Rebelabies’ up and down hills and taping players’ mouths shut.
This got me thinking: what is Cheika and his assistant coaches’ endgame?
In my Wallaby utopia, I invite the best players in the country – Kurtley Beale and Will Genia – to come together and practice as a squad.
The players I have selected already have fantastic skills in their positions and are match fit. I don’t need to teach them how to do their jobs, I just need to teach them how to play together as a team while keeping them battle ready. Combos, permutations and players learning to recognise, embrace and respect each other and their skillsets.
We will already have a gameplan developed based on the players we have selected and the way they have peformed in their respective franchises. Based on how the squad work together, injury, fatigue and sin-bin coverage, we select a gameday 23 and run-on 15.
All the other players will be ready reserves in case a player becomes unavailable due to injury or mishap with a local food truck.
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What I am seeing third-hand in the current Wallaby camp has a very military feel to it. Boot camp psychology is built around obedience and getting a group of people to behave exactly the same way. Everything is done a set way, the same way, over and over.
Now, this is an effective way to get people with average skills to war, but it has the curios byproduct of stifling autonomy and innovation.
Does this mean that Cheika’s gameplan is more of the same? The secret to winning is crash-ball, only faster, stronger and harder.
Continuing the military metaphor, the first SAS platoon was a collection of misfits – highly skilled free-thinkers who didn’t work well in the rigid structure of the infantry. Teamed together, they learnt to create something greater than the sum of its parts, agile and able to adjust plans of attack and defence to suit the environment.
A multi-skilled team that can box kick, grubber, crashball, high ball, offload, and run wide at the right time and frequency in attack, and cover the same possibilities in defence, is going to perform much better than a pony with only one trick.
Has Cheika prepared a tank battle where the enemy has just received a shipment of shoulder-launch missiles with armour-piercing heads?
I don’t think this is going to end well.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.