Has running rugby gone by the wayside?

I'm available. I'll put my hand up to encourage running rugby in NSW. I have always wanted to coach NSW. I'll do it for the kit, the travel, and the opportunity to share our great game with elite athletes. No need for a salary and hence I won't be scared of losing my income if management drops me. My coaching philosophy will be simple. Select forwards who will dominate the set pieces and backs who are fast. Really fast. So fast they will blur down the sideline not just run. We will work hard in our training sessions on the basics of set pieces and ball handling. The players will develop their own moves. I will retain veto rights over all selections and moves. The game plan will be simple, and the Captain will have the authority to change it mid-game if required. No coach's calls will come from the box/sideline - players will be totally in charge once they leave the sheds. They will be trained to think and if they don't they will be dropped. A semi-final placing in Super Rugby will be seen as a failure, not a pass mark. All players will have a part-time job or be in a real part-time degree course and engage frequently in rugby clinics for the youngsters in NSW. Anyone not in the Saturday squad will train Tues and Thur with their club and play club rugby on Saturday. Getting back into the NSW squad will depend on them dominating at Shute Shield level. Volunteer scouts will combe 1st and 2nd grade Shute shield teams, and country rugby, for players overlooked by the national talent squad boffins. Sydney University players will be discriminated against in NSW selections until the Uni stops giving taxpayer funded scholarships to the top schoolboys. Any NSW or Australian Schoolboy representative who goes to play 2nds and 3rds colts at Sydney Uni will be forced to play for Parramatta. And like it. And bring their mates to play there too. No schoolboy superstar will play for NSW until they have had a successful season in 1st grade Shute Shield rugby. Water bottles will be banned from the coaches' box. Meat pies and a cold beer will be mandatory items on the shelf when the cameras pan up to me and the parents of the players. Any forward who is standing still when the half passes him the ball will be hooked immediately. I'll bring in big, strong country boys who like to start their run 10 meters behind the breakdown, get the pass at full pace just as they crash into any defender willing to stand in the defensive line. Oh the sheer beauty of it...... Any half who pauses...pauses...pauses before geting the ball away from the breakdown will also be hooked immediately and replaced by a livewire. Permanently. .There will only be 1 coach for the team. I will fire the kicking coaches, re-start coaches, motivational psychologists, defence coaches, strategists, video analysts, highly-qualified water boys, suport staff, statisticians, assistant coaches, senior assistant coaches, high performance analysts, physical performance managers, strenghth and conditioning coaches, and anyone else left. Their salaries will go towards Junior rugby development in Parramatta and Penrith. All head office marketing/promotions staff will be fired and their salaries spent on country rugby development. And I'm just beginning. Dynamic, running rugby will win games, win supporters, and most importantly give players intense satisfaction. Our game will grow exponentially. All I want is a NSW tracksuit, and a picture on the wall at home with the NSW team holding up the Super Rugby trophy.

You are joking joeb, I found an article saying Waratahs viewing up 38% on last year and the reds 40% - check the base line data and you will the penetration into the bush as well, then check the international data and you will see a greater uplift.

Geez crowd, already predicting the future, going to enormous effort to write off the team again, boy....would be interested to see what you do enjoy....whinging it appears! Enjoy and support the game for what it is - support your team and you may see change. How many tries did the Waratahs get this year? What was their defensive record? Watch the games again, ask how many players were injured at critical times, what new players stood up and how excited we can be to see guys like Alcock, Kingston, Tilse, Timani, Ashley-Cooper, Elsom and Vickerman - to name a few! Mitchell will be back and Barnes looks the goods. Enough to see some light???

"For the Tahs to get ‘attacking kicking’ right, Barnes has to play at 10, to execute the attacking strategy – he is the only one capable of doing it." As we saw in the RWC, when Berrick runs the ball, he's at least a 5 times better player, but what's gunna be the Tahs' backline configuration next year? Hangers at 10, Berrick at 12, AAC at 13, Lachie and whoever else on the wings, and someone else at FB. If the Tahs don't play attractive rugby, who'll bother going to watch? Even the Fox viewing stats showed this year supporters were tuning out of Tahs games and watching the Reds instead, so you'd think the NSW hierarchy got the message? Hope so. "Many Aussies constantly compare union to league, which is a big mistake, & yearn for the same open play that we see in league." No offence to leaguies, but, well, okay, if my team the Rabbitohs are playing, I'll watch, sometimes, but otherwise, just not too enthralled, and when they talk about, rucks, mauls, scrums in league, what do they mean, unless they're referring back to the 1980s? For an open running game of rugby, chaps, the Wallabies v. the Barbarians, late Nov., 2011, followed by the Wallabies v Wales clash early Dec. Pity we're not playing Ireland too.

Please, can we avoid that awful phrase "front football". What the hell is that? It's "front-foot ball", ie. getting the ball on the "front foot".

Very interesting Sheek. Never thought of it in that light it explains a lot. The other part of the equation is whatever is the cliché in coaching at the time. Eddie Jones brought in 'the set piece doesn't matter there are too few in a game' concept that destroyed our forward play but that idea was very popular. Only 2 years ago I heard the first grade coach of a local team say to the guys 'If you don't get a hit on then collapse it' regarding the scrum and 'don't commit to the breakdown get out in defence' these were classic Eddie Jones ideas that ensured we didn't learn how to compete at the breakdown. So in Australia we have 10 years of training in how NOT to become a forward and rewarded forwards who could run and link. On the other side of the equation we slavishly followed weight and muscle for our backs in place of speed and guile. The results of this social experiment is still being worked out thanks to Robbie Deans. The difference in Beale is the proof of the weirdness of this idea. How stupid, we developed forwards that could not compete and backs that could not run.

Not sure if that's Haiku, but I like it.

All 15 players are equally important and any Super 15 team ignores it's back line at their peril. It is not a knockout game, bonus points are critical at the sharp end of the season. So just keep playing dumb boring 10 man rugby and Tahs watch the focus of the Australian Conference shift even further away from Sydney.

It's not the kick that counts. It's the chase, the territory gained, the tacklers on The spot to form a ruck, and win it. It's not the ball going to boot that matters really. The interest in the game depends on more than just running catching and passing.

Very true Brett and they also knew when it was on they could move the ball from anywhere and score. Every team needs flexibility in their game plan. If you can do the basics well then you are half way there.

It's still worth noting that the current Super Rugby champions also kicked the ball more than any other team in 2011...

The Wallabies ran the ball plenty of times last year. It's the only we managed to flog France in Paris. We weren't going to hammer them by forward strength and scrummaging them off the park

Yes and no. The Bulls won their titles on the back of a strong pack and kicking game.

The biggest thing I see is that teams should strive to vary their play rather than stick to 10 man rugby. If you mix it up the opposition doesn't automatically know what you are going to do so it can provide opportunities. When you are playing a forward-based team the obvious thing to do is put numbers in at the breakdown and on the fringes. But then if they throw it wide there can be holes in the defense to exploit. It is much easier to defend when the opposition is predictable so why wouldn't you mix it up. NZ are a team that can keep it tight as needed, but then if the other team does a bad kick or something then the NZ backs can tear them apart.

Lets agree on what "running rugby"is. Lets say, keep ball in hand, and keep it moving between players running at pace looking for a gap. That puts a lot of pressure on ball handling, and speed to breakdown. It requires players to be alert for pop up passes at any time eg Beale, and it means some 50/50 passes will be thrown eg Cooper. It involves risk taking, 15 blokes with same hymn sheet and confidence when you might be behind on the scoreboard. If I was Foley, I'd ask them to play 80 minutes like you are 5 down with 5 to go.

i can now see why Kurtley Beale left the Tahs..

Sorry but isn't Super Rugby about scoring tries ???? to get a bonus points ????? what we are going to see kick and chase ... well last year all we saw from the Tahs was kick NO CHASE,,,, If you keep kicking it you are also kicking the crowds away,,, didn't anyone listen at the forum ???? stop kicking the ball.....

But i like 10 man rugby to degree. World cup finals were intense defence orientate matches, set pieces improtant, but it did not lack intensity. I like rugby union more than league, becoz a tryis hard to come by in test rugby,, anyway. Part of Australia's and super 15 rugby is to much pressure to entertain rather than win, where as in NH countries, south africa, NZ it is only about winning no matter who you do it, that's what counts for the fans. ANd i ot be honest find super 15 boring at times, sometimes ot much like league, i want set pieces rewarded, good tactical kicking rewarded like in test rugby, more in super 15.