Inside centre problems have a solution in Berrick Barnes

With the stance i think you're eluding to, that's rugby 101. If by your outside leg leading forward you mean your outside foot planted ahead of you inside? While i can see the sense in this helping to counter drifting in attack, the main reason for positioning your body in this way is to open up your upper body to recieving a pass. Ive played my rugby career at 10/12 and have always been taught to stand towards the play in attack and the opposite in defense to push the ball towards the sideline. I think straightening in attack is just the same as defense, it's a mind set, and when it becomes 2nd nature you're sorted.

Frank, Yes, O'Connor's personal preference was for inside centre, but he was the most beautifully balanced runner I can recall. Outside centre seemed his ideal position in union. Well, put it this way, O'Connor, O'Driscoll, Sella, Gerber, Guscott & Little were all good, all at the same high level, but none any better than each other. The funny, or is that sad, thing about Hawker & Slack, is that while they had very different ideas about tactics, they were actually very similar in their styles. So rather than compliment each other, they only cancelled each other out!!!

Interestingly, Michael O'Connor's favourite position was inside centre. He only played there once for the Wallabies I believe. But in Queensland O'Connor was the 12, and Slack was the 13. He was going to be given a chance there in 1981/82, but he injured himself playing basketball... I believe? Anyway he hurt himself on the 1981/82 tour and missed the match against Scotland. Hawker and Slack were, by Hawker's admission, a very poor centre combination. They were two guys with two different ideas on what to do.

Frank/Sam, By 1984 Hawker was no longer the player he was in say 1982. Although he was only 25, the same age as Mark Ella, Hawker already seemed consumed with his financial career post rugby. It's funny how things could've been so different. Had O'Connor remained in union, it's reasonable to assume he would have retained the 13 shirt & probably been goalkicker. With Mark Ella at 10, Hawker & Slack would have competed for the 12 shirt. If Jones had wanted to retain the Ella-Hawker-O'Connor midfield, which is quite reasonable to suggest, then Slack would have missed out. And someone else would have had to captain the 1984 grand slam Wallabies. Loane has often said he retired too early in 1982. What if he had decided to play on, would he have continued as Wallabies skipper? I often wonder how the period from about 1982 to 1987 could have been played out so differently....

didnt read anything, but there are alot of comments which means this has been on our minds for a while. dont want to be a know it all but ive been calling for barnes to be in at 12 since he declared he was fit. mccabe, great defender and good runner most of the time, but barnes is also a great defender, can kick, and can also pass, something mccabe cant or wont do. also barnes has the best show and go going around. get him in robbie.

Hi Sam, That's an interesting tidbit about Hawker. The Ella-Hawker-O'Connor trio was one of those forgotten gems of Australian rugby. Hawker himself is a little underrated in Australia. As a pure inside centre he was better than Lynagh, but Australia was desperate for a goalkicker in 1984 - perhaps more than any time in Australian rugby history. He got culled. The Great Alan Jones admitted it was an ugly decision. I enjoy hearing about the 1982 Wallabies from you. You mentioned Campo had an impact on you in 1982 too - everybody was trying to mimmick the goosestep in New Zealand.

I agree with the article Frank but don't think you go far enough!. I think both centres need changing. Barnes definitely needs to be at 12! He has a good kicking game and is the sort of steady player we needed the other night to buy us some field position (and maybe some cheap field goal points). Barnes is not the biggest centre but is a reliable low tackler. McCabe is not big enough to fulfil the "big" inside centre role anyway (think Nonu or Jamie Roberts) so why not go back to a second play maker (and a complementary one to Quade). Faingaa has shown that while he is a big hearted player and willing defender, he has hands like feet. He offers very little in attack. He should be replaced by Rob Horne who also loves a big hit but is much better at setting up his outside support. Let's see it Robbie!

wholeheartedly agree with that Mike.

The Bench and what can be done? - Since no one appears to be know why Robbie has slipped backwards with his use of the bench I am asking fellow Roarers to devise some kind of signal, method, prompt or what ever to wake him out of his Coaching Coma and actually get him using the bench wisely. We all agree that 7 min before final whistle with score 6-15 it was too late to send in the storm troopers. Popular wise opinion reckons that a bench player needs somewhere around 20-30 minutes to really make a difference. So at the 50th minute of play what is it that WE can do to arouse Robbie from his dopey slumber and for him to start thinking about replacements? One suggestion mentioned the bench all wearing bright Mexican hats with flashing lights. Nice! Anyone got his mobile number? I bet John O'Neill has.

Frank, you should be the Wallaby back coach. Cooper would be more dangerous if there were a second point-of-attack. Deans never explains tactics. All we get are rugby platitudes. However, to execute your plan the Wallabies would need players who are experienced in their positions.

Frank, I don't agree that the Wallaby midfield currently is its biggest weakness. You can put every recent loss down to opposition forward dominance, not a lack of backline firepower. Until we have a consistently dominant pack, we will struggle to win more than a couple on the trot.

Here Here! BB is not flashy but is a quality rugby player which fits the bill for this Wallabies side. Why he was left off the bench for the Ireland game is beyond me given the conditions and the opposition. 12 is an underrated position (in terms of its importance) and needs to be filled by a player which does more than run straight into the defence with no variation or imagination. McCabe has always been in the top few most overrated wallabies for me (alongside Richard Brown, Ben McCalman, Dean Mumm, Rob Simmons and Scott Higganbotham). He works hard but at the end of the day is not test quality. If BB can get his noggin sorted out he is the missing back line link this team needs. For what its worth, my preferred back line would be 9 Genia 10 QC 11 Digby (replaced by Drew Mitchell if still injured for QFs) 12 Barnes 13 AAC 14 JOC 15 KB 21 Burgess 22 Ant Faiingaa If you insist Ant Faiingaa must be in the XV, I would swap substitute him for AAC without much of an argument, who would drop to the bench with Burgess as cover for Sanchez. I am one of Rob Hornes biggest fans but he has not had enough match experience to be included in the XV or 22 - barring injury of course. The real issue remains the pack - really disappointing on Saturday - shows the importance of Pocock and Moore. I would not make wholesale changes, this team has been performing well prior to Ireland, and would stick with the tight 5 (with TPN out for Moore), back 3 of Pocock, Samo and Rocky is not too bad - just bring Palu and Higgers on about 20-30mins earlier. Cant see the value in Simmons - where is Nathan Sharpe? He should certainly be the reserve lock. forwards bench of TPN, Slipper, Sharpe, Higgers and Palu has a fair bit of grunt in it.

Hi Frank Good write up. When I was playing rugby at inside centre or second five as we called it in NZ, I tried to model a lot of my play on Michael Hawker who was the premier player in that position in my mind. One thing I recall from studying how he played on the 1982 tour to NZ was that to ensure he ran as straight a line as possible he always stood with his outside leg leading forward, that way when he began to run he naturally ran in towards the play rather than away from it if his inside leg was leading forward. It's one of those little technical things that go unnoticed but make a big difference when checking a sliding defence.

Good article and as a forward I tend to agree as 12 shapes the attack and is the guy flankers often need to follow. That said when choosing the run on side I always consider 9 as the key. 9's decision making and ability (or lack of) to "drive" his forwards is to me paramount. A poor communicator/decision maker at 9 fluffs good opportunities but a 9 who has his forwards trust keeps them switched on and happy when he ships it wide.

Hi Hoy, I partly agree with you there, but the fact remains that while ever Cooper is such a defensive liability it means we have to pick players to compensate for his weaknesses. If for example, there is a turnover, who would you rather have: Cooper and JOC defending a rampaging backrower, or Cooper and McCabe? I'd be prepared to bet that the ripple effect flowing from Cooper's defense is a significant reason the coaches have been so happy to keep persisting with McCabe. I think it also probably influenced the coach's poor decision not to get Mitchell on sooner because they were afraid it would expose too many defensive frailties.

"can't remember blindside" is kind of apt given his disappearing act vs. the Irish.

Justin, it wasn't that many years ago on The Roar I was reading that Ella wouldn't be able to do in the 2000s what he was able to do in the 1980s, because defences were so much stronger. Lo & behold, along comes Quade Cooper to prove what a load of hogwash that kind of thinking is. And Cooper's not a patch on Ella. I agree Justin, looking at old footage, how schoolboy-ish our test heroes of yesterday looked. But they were cutting edge back then. Humans evolve gradually - each generation is bigger, stronger, faster but not intrinsically better. But its the same difference today as then, it's all relative to the times. The attack needs to be sharper because the defence is better, & vice versa. What you'll find over time is some innovative coach will come up with a new idea, except that some old timer will remember it being used by someone else, so it wasn't really innovative, except the coach, or player in question, was smart enough to go back through history to find ideas from the past that might work in the present, with some tinkering. For example, back in the late 70s/early 80s when the Ella brothers started using their 'flatline' attack (standing up in the faces of the defence) at Randwick, NSW & Wallabies, many people thought this was groundbreaking new stuff. Randwick had long believed in the ball-in-hand running rugby style of game, brought back to them by members of the famous Waratahs of 1927/28 - Cyril Towers & Wally Meagher. But even the 'flatline' attack adopted by the Ellas was a relatively new concept to them. Except it wasn't. The idea had apparently previously been evolved by Otago coach Vic Cavendish either side of WW2. And then the Scots claim the idea originally came form the Borders region at the start of the 1900s. So I guess there isn't much new under the sun. Just re-jigging & evolving old ideas to fit the present.

Clearly Deans has his favorites...and, like BB, his not so favorites. How Horne could get the 12 spot ahead of barnes, after the inept & rudderless play in the 10/12 channel Sat night has me dumbfounded...This might seem a tad harsh on McCabe, but for mine the wallabies play best when they have a tactical thinker in the 12 channel. I am stunned that Deans didn't use this opportunity (which, even against the 1st string USA was going to be a Wallabies win), to slide barnes in alongside Cooper to give us another creative option...and yes, to all the barnes haters, sometimes (like Sat night) BB's kicking game could've really helped us out of trouble. All champion sides have a strong mix of talent, and that includes a clever kicking game

Thats true to a degree Sheek and Ella was a genius both in the mind and in body. But I was watching the way backlines defended back in 87 for instance and they were jus awful. The attack had so much time it wasnt funny. No rush defence, man on man most of the time as well. You cant compare the old and the new, it isnt fair on either party.

Sheek, I've noticed that in the classic Wallaby reruns. Their support play was incredible. Someone was always there to take the pass. It doesn't happen that often these days. Why? Its simple stuff!