Aussie Robbie's real challenge

A Super 14 coach chooses his own playing roster and then has them under his charge for eight months of the year. He has every opportunity and all the resources to implement his plans for his team.

A national coach has no such luxury.

In Australia, he receives his players from four unions, all with coaches playing their own individual style of rugby.

Coupled with only weeks to prepare his charges for Tests, this presents little time to re-program players to his plans.

This has been very evident from the present Wallaby team, who have come out of the robotic regimes of Jones and Connolly and are really struggling to play the Deans way.

Personally, I do not hold great aspirations for this Wallaby team in this years Tri Nations and I will not be blaming Deans either.

However, what I will judge Deans on is his ability to influence our other Super 14 coaches to play the Deans way so that we have a production line, similar to New Zealand, that feeds into the Wallabies.

There is some wonderful talent coming through Australian rugby at the moment. Would it not be great if they arrived into the Test team and not have to be re-programed?

Setting up a seamless and integrated system is fundamental to winning.

Rod McQueen was able to do that and won a World Cup, the Bledisloe Cup, and beat the British Lions.

Let’s see if Aussie Robbie can match that.

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