It is easy to deride a sportsman’s post match interview for the cliché and aphorism laden spiel that is so often spurted forth like some flailing hosepipe of rote-learned monkey gibberish.
It is very difficult, however, to write a sports article that does not utilise or rely upon the assumed wisdom of the same.
Clichés and aphorisms share much with sport: destined for continued repetition and of uncertain and flickering meaning.
A rather sly old English teacher taught me the seditious delight of overturning clichés in bad literature and exposing their indefensible shortcomings and it is a habit I have no intention of dropping. Take for example the statement that rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes.
Apply a mere dab of scrutiny and we find that a few additions to that statement are needed to describe the reality. Firstly, we should stipulate that all these shapes and sizes be of the sporting variety for no frail constitution can withstand a collision sport.
If we want the statement to hold for those who are successful at the sport then we also need to add that those shapes and sizes hold about 10 kilos more muscle mass than the average bloke on the street.
Finally we should add that there are conditions to those sizes and shapes. A small, lithe man like Shane Williams certainly could play rugby at the highest level but would he have been successful if was possessing only average speed and agility. Could a giant like Andries Bekker play if he didn’t have the co-ordination and athleticism that many men of similar height struggle to attain?
So rugby is a game for sporting types of enhanced shapes and sizes that meet certain conditions specific to each shape and size.
This victory of logic over bollocks will not, I fear, rank among the great achievements of the Aristotelian tradition but it serves as a useful introduction to the deconstruction of a sporting aphorism that has great implications for Robbie Deans and the perception of his legacy.
You are only as good as your last game.
Google registers 437,000 individual matches of that exact phrase which is used to both deride those who rest on their laurels but also to bolster those who have only recently overturned a period of failure.
Consider this phrase in terms of Scotland’s recent defeat of the Wallabies. Are Scotland an equal to the southern hemisphere teams now? I’ll let you mull over that for a while and then tell you the answer.
It’s no.
Are Scotland improving? Possibly; they played very well in their loss to England in the first round of the most recent Six Nations but didn’t really build on it. If we accept that their win over Australia was the result of progress under Andy Robinson how useful is a the result of that single game in establishing the nature of that progress?
We can yet keep the cliché alive by slightly altering it to ‘your last game is an indicator of your progress’. That statement is rather begging for a qualifier so, if we feel that a better indicator of progress can be attained from a deeper view, say the last 5 games, then this would leave the cliché again changed to ‘your last game is a poor indicator of your progress’.
The point, which enduring readers are now no doubt now clamouring for, is that any attempt to vindicate Robbie Deans on the back of Australia’s defeat of Wales is illogical.
Under Robbie Deans, Australia has demonstrated a clear inability to achieve consistency which has resulted in them experiencing rather embarrassing defeats by teams that Australia had distinct advantages over.
Scotland, Samoa, Ireland at the World Cup and Scotland again.
Robbie Deans’ legacy as coach of the Australian team will be one of responsibility for unprofessional levels of inconsistency by a young team that is still malleable in its sense of self and what it considers to be an acceptable performance.
The win against Wales contained some wonderful rugby but until we stop losing games we clearly shouldn’t we are simply not as good as our last win.
We are somewhere between the win against Wales and the loss to Scotland.
Enjoy the win, but we are still a team that bumbles and trips up, that accepts inexcusable defeats, that lapses and wanes, that occasionally doesn’t appear to know what it is doing and that tosses up weak excuses when it does so.
There is not a realm of human endeavour where that sort of behaviour would be considered acceptable while it is being paid for.
In short, the Wallabies are not professional and whether he deserves it or not, that is going to be Deans legacy.
Dassie
Guest
Wales 0 Australia 2; Wales 0 Australia 3. Go Robbie, you doing something right. Come and revive the Tahs. HAHAHA JA
ThelmaWrites
Guest
Thanks, SMI, but I think it’s because, not having played rugby, I bring a different background and different interests into my understanding of the game. My apologies, Garth, for being hot-under-the-collar about this discussion on professionalism. I have SIX months!!! to bring professionalism to our terribly unprofessional family business. Next Saturday, 23 June, I start a course on management and supervision based on my Citibank experience for two batches of senior personnel. I’ve assured my nephew who runs the firm that it won’t cost the business a centavo. So he can’t really object since this my private initiative. The merienda and lunch, the whiteboards, the Lego set etc, will come from my pocket and it will be taught in my house. The consequence of not bringing professionalism into the family business is that we may turn up for work soon and find the premises padlocked by the regulatory authority. (They’ve padlocked FOUR in the last month.) I’m not kidding! Guess who’s keen on the course? If I fail to turn the family business into a professional outfit after six months, it it my fault?
Calcio
Guest
None of that will matter either. The structural problems are inherent in the game. Without them, there is no game. With them, Australian rugby union is destined to never move forward from where it has sat in the past.
bennalong
Guest
Interesting that an article so obviously written with the writer chuckling to himself about his whimsically wonderful way with words should be taken so seriously But on these pages you can always count on the knockers so if you throw them even a couple of pearls you'll pull enough comments to keep your editors happy, and it's not really about the national team is it? Well yes it is! It doesn't take Einstein to work out that the Wallabies are in a much better place than they were when Deans took over, that the team has greater depth and that it can beat Wales without it's three most touted playmakers In the current era it is impossible to be competitive with 22 players. In order to get depth Deans was forced to advance players who were not always seen as test material and I would point out that the three playmakers mentioned above were all maligned by the same whingers Why not wait and see what the team can do and at least leave the vitriol until the season is more advanced Better still, try supporting your national team, it feels quite good!
ShaghaiDoc
Guest
When one considers the players he has, the best being mostly mercenary Kiwis and an African, he has not done badly.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
Thorn was never a great lineout forward so Robbie can't have taught him that much, can he? Robbie teaches Thorn how to catch in a lineout and we're supposed to be in awe because he used a fence post? Typical Deans fluff. Colin Meads had tremendous rugby skills. Frik du Preez had tremendous rugby skills. Brad Thorn has a massive engine but he's not tremendously skilled. Personally, I think Bakkies Botha was a better player.
Frank O'Keeffe
Guest
It's hard to say... Tours to Europe, for most of the 20th century, happened like once a decade. And the rest of the time Australia was playing New Zealand. Even when Wales were great during the 70s, they only played NZ twice and lost both times. They seldom beat NZ. Australia's had some great moments and great teams, but many of them got interrupted. The mid 60s was a good period, and but for a bit of luck Australia might have won a series in NZ in 1964. Australia won two Test in SA in 1963, something never done at that stage. They clean sweeped NZ in 1949, albeit in controversial circumstances. They had great sides in the 30s and 20s too. The 1934 Wallabies beat NZ, and the 27/28 Waratah's reinvented the rugby wheel. But when your main competition is NZ, it's hard to know where you're at. The 50s and most of the 70s are rightly judged as horrible decades for Australia though.
Calcio
Guest
I hate to tell you blokes something about your sport but the lack of matches of real significance pre-1970s (refer O'Keefe article) suggest any developments in Australian rugby union have been largely ephemeral and the baseline has been pretty ordinary for the long period between the 1880s and the 1970s.
mikeylives
Guest
Why do you use Nucifora to prove a point about McKenzie. Gone soft after a couple of seasons? Almost takes an average Tahs team to Super14 title in his second year, then takes Reds to Super15 title in his second season with some of the least conservative play in the comp. Appears to refute your point.
IronAwe
Guest
I often wonder about that. Had a conversation with a mate recently and I said I think the reasons we under perform so much is because the kind of guys we need in the forwards end up playing league instead.
IronAwe
Guest
I also was hoping Alan Jones would get it, (If Deans didn't) I wonder if he'll put his hand up again at the end of Deans' tenure...
Darcy
Guest
@otahni'shjacket to say that Thorn didn't have great rugby skills is preposterus. He wasn't in the All Blacks for his line out jumping. He did call the last line out in the world cup final on himself don't forget - that is leadership. He was in the side because of his fearsome scrummaging power, his ability to clear rucks better than anyone else on the planet, and his attitude. I am a season ticket holder at Leinster and it was a massive thrill to see one of the great rugby warriors of the last 20 years line out in blue. We wouldn't have beaten Clermont in the semi without him.
Jutsie
Guest
No Ben S, he may not have played Cooper/Beale in the starting line up of the wallabies but he was selecting them in the wider squads and sometimes on the bench when most supporters thought they weren't even test match standard. Cooper was terrible at the reds prior to 2010 and was not even on most peoples radar in 2008 but deans gave him a spot on the bench for few games in 2008 nov tour and he basically saved us the embarrassment of losing to italy. I was a beale hater and never thought he'd live upto the hype when he was playing 5/8 for the tahs, but look where he is now. He showed faith in them when no one else did.
stillmissit
Roar Guru
Sheek a great summation of the Wallabies efforts since its revival in the late 70's early 80's. You have to ask yourself how inconsistent the other teams have been over the years if we have managed to stay around the top for many years? The Welsh were the most consistent in my youth of the 60's - 70's but they went into a hole. SA has not been the force it was prior to its exclusion due to apartheid. I think apart from the occasional time when they have slipped from #1 if we are looking for consistency then they are the only team to achieve this over the last 40 years.
colvin
Guest
Sheek You are correct. The anti Deans brigade while displaying quite commendable passion for Australian rugby are being completely unreasonable on what they demand of Deans. How can a head coach turn around over 100 years of inconsistency when the underlying problems are not being addressed? With the current heated feelings surrounding the head coach position it doesn't help Robbie's cause that he is a NZer. That's why I believe the WB coach should be an Australian. If the coach is to be a bum in the minds of the WB supporters at least they can say he's our bum.
sheek
Guest
Garth, Very informative & educative article. But consistency in Australian rugby is a historical problem, not just under Deans' tenure. The 2003 Wallabies were crushed by both England & the All Blacks in season. Then they just scraped into the quarter finals of he world cup courtesy of a one-point win over ireland. In the quarters, the Wallabies beat scotland convincingly on the scoreboard, but unconvincingly by the manner of their endeavour. At this point, Wallabies fans were despairing, even raging against their teams befuddled behaviour. The Wallabies then put two great games together back-to-back. There was the unexpected boil-over win in the semi against the ABs, followed by pushing England to the last minute of extra-time in a contest few must have thought they were capable of. Then there's 1999. The Wallabies, ABs & Boks all headed for the world cup with an even record, beating each other at home, but losing to each other away. The Wallabies second to last game before the world cup, against the Boks in Cape Town, resulted in an abysmal 9-10 defeat. Back in Sydney, they beat the ABs in a bore-fest 28-7, which included one try apiece. Despite the return from injury of both Eales & Larkham, Macqueen decided on the evidence of these two games, that despite having one of the most brilliant backlines in history, the team would play conservatively at the world cup. Even the 1998 Wallabies, which beat the ABs thrice in the one year, also lost twice to the Boks in the same timeframe. Then there's the 1984 Wallabies. They won the grand slam, but before this lost a series to the ABs they should definitely have won. After winning the 1st test quite comfortably, & racing to a 12-0 in almost as many minutes in the 2nd, they went to sleep. By the time they realised they were in a contest, the ABs had stolen the 2nd test. In the 3rd test, the stop-start nature of the game prevented the Wallabies from finding their rhythm. Nevertheless, they lost by a lousy point, & if they had shown some more flexibility in tactics, might have still pinched the game, & the series. The most consistent period I can recall from the Wallabies in the 40-odd years I have been following them, was the period 1991-92. In an extraordinary sequence of outstanding consistency, they won 13 of 15 tests. Without being churlish, the two tests they lost (both to the ABs), could have also been won. For me, winning consistency from the Wallabies is a historical exception, rather than the rule. Deans' crime, if he is to be accused of anything, has been his inability to reverse this historical trend. Rather, he has merely extended the status quo. Which then allows me then to say what I've been saying elsewhere for some time. For Australian rugby to shrug off it's inconsistent past, it needs to urgently overhaul it's outdated & inefficient domestic structures. But I don't see anyone hurrying to do this. Consequently, Australian rugby is doomed to repeat its up-down-up-down roller-coaster ride of the past 100-odd years, over & over. Sure, go ahead & sack Deans. But the next Wallaby coach, & the next after that, will also have to deal with the same outdated & inefficient domestic structures that are ultimately responsible for the boom-bust cycle of Australian rugby.
wannabprop
Guest
Might be worth getting hold of a video of the the 1984 Grand Slam. And while you're at it, check out tests between Aust and NZ '78 to '82 - wonderful, close contests at a time when Australia still lost many top players to League.
Snobby Deans
Guest
Not if the All Blacks played it as well
wannabprop
Guest
Absolutely. I was wondering when you'd point this out. And most of those deplorable losses displayed the same coaching inadequacies of poor selection, game plan and strategy (including and especially on game day). Deans continues to be out-coached before and during matches (most recently by Andy Robinson).
wannabprop
Guest
We were talking about that during the week...