Wallabies Rugby Championship squad announced

Well said. Look @ the Waratahs where players were assured of getting picked every week irrespective of how they performed. But when it came to Test matches, they suddenly miraculously found form! Is it just because Robbie is a better coach than Foley? Force seem to think Foley's pretty good! Maybe Rocky's mindset rubbed off on the Tahs this year - ie I don't need to play Super Rugby - I'll concentrate on being a Wallaby! When McKenzie takes over things might change. One thing he might do is dump the underperformers or those who feel they have a God-given right to play for the Wallabies and replace them with players who put in every week. Or maybe Jake White should be the next Wallabies coach? Look what he's done with a bunch of no-names this year in Brumbie-land!

"responded well against France, and made their big backs look silly." Genia/JOC/Cooper/Barnes/AAC/Mitchell/Beale. 59-16 in Paris. And to think, we could have almost played that backline, with Digby in for Mitchell, in the RWC Semi last year. Instead we had Adam Ashley-Cooper; James O'Connor, Anthony Fainga'a, Pat McCabe, Digby Ioane; Quade Cooper, Will Genia. Barnes wasn't even on the bench. Rob Horne was.

"Wasn’t Barnes the 10 in the scotland loss as well" That game was lost by the forwards in a monsoon. Not Barnes's fault.

"Sadly however i think Deans will go for Barnes at 10, Horne at 13, and probably Faingaa at 12. If he does, well I suspect our prospects will be limited." Agree x 2.

If you consider the "A" team that was allegedly running at training last week and where the rest fit in you get this, L to R, in each position - Benn Robinson, Ben Alexander Stephen Moore, Tatafu Polota-Nau, Saia Faingaa Sekope Kepu, James Slipper Nathan Sharpe, Rob Simmons Sitaleki Timani, Kane Douglas Dave Dennis, Jake Schatz David Pocock, Michael Hooper, Liam Gill Scott Higginbotham, Radike Samo Will Genia, Nic White, Nick Phipps Berrick Barnes, Quade Cooper, Anthony Faingaa, Mike Harris, Rob Horne, Digby Ioane, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Drew Mitchell Kurtley Beale So the places he has a specific third cover are 2, 7, 9. Harris covers 10 to an extent. Expect then that the 4 who go out 96 hours pre game will be, barring injury, say Sfaingaa, Gill, Phipps plus one more - probably a 2R, say Douglas. Then on the Friday, 4 more go out. Probably 1 prop - Slipper?, a backrower - Hooper or Samo? (leaves 5 forwards on the bench) and two backs - Cooper atm & maybe Mitchell, while they get fit. that leaves starting - Benn Robinson, Stephen Moore, Sekope Kepu, Nathan Sharpe, Sitaleki Timani, Dave Dennis, David Pocock, Scott Higginbotham, Will Genia, Berrick Barnes, Anthony Faingaa, (12) Rob Horne, (13) Digby Ioane, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Kurtley Beale bench Ben Alexander Tatafu Polota-Nau, Rob Simmons Jake Schatz Michael Hooper, Nic White, Mike Harris I have a really bad feeling about this game.

^^^ Agree 100%.

Got to feel sorry for Nick Cummins. His second call up but still no cap. Despite being handicapped by mediocre inside backs and a kick happy scrum half he had an outstanding season. He was one of the few Aussies in any team to successfully take on and stop Sonny Bill when he played at 12 specifically for that purpose. Hopefully he'll get his chance on the summer tour.

If he is fully fit, I agree with you. But a half-crocked Palu - like a half-crocked TPN at the RWC - is not the same thing.

Harry, this AUSSIE ROBBIE thingy? one wonders if he's from OZealand (grin); neither Liam Messam nor Brodie Retallick will start but may be incl in the 22 and get a run when required (fresh legs) ; we NZers think of loosies/flankers as being imposing 6'2" + players and Messam loses out in our psyche in that respect but is a very strong player with stamina and a helluva lot of natural speed (a bit like another unlucky player in that regard >> Duane Monkley ).......... cheers

Dave, good posts. You do make a lot of sense.

The squad looks okay, my concern is we still have no line breaking , aggressive ball carrying forward. I would play Higgers at 6 and play a specialist 8, higgers doesnt push an lacks th skill at scrum time. How Holmes is not in the squad I am miffed, Alexander and robinson are in but not him JOKE. Timani has to deliver or it's time to play club rugby, he needs to let his frame do the talking this series. I know deans will play Barnes but I would pick cooper,we've seen a very different player this year since he's back from injury he's demonstrating a lot more controlled creativity. No Taps interesting, A. finger my pick at 12, I'm glad Mitchell is back, he reads the game, runs great lines and will score tries but what I like most is he sets a very high standard for his own performance. As for Genia it's no coincidence his super form shot through the roof when Cooper came back, let's hope it continues in to the series Go the Wallabies, may our Olympic performance not be your inspiration !!!

Pocock deserved MoM far more than Barnes. Barnes got it more for his goalkicking which was superb rather than his general play. Wasn't Barnes the 10 in the scotland loss as well? Barnes was rattled in attack against the rushing defence of the welsh. He stood further and further in the pocket, he gave poor passes, why do you think with the players mentioned the atack was so poor. Genia was the spark rather than Barnes. Wallabies are no chance to beat the AB's with Barnes at 10.

if we look at recent history when Cooper was 10 we beat the AB's a few times. Barnes struggled to beat Wales with all the players you mentioned as quality except for JoC. Barnes attacking play is poor, his kicking is weak in placement and tactical use he kicks when he shouldnt and when he should kick if he does it is the wrong kick. He panics far too much. His tackling has also fallen off. He is not anywhere near the player before his migraines.

I appreciate that the defence wont be as capable. There is no question that AF and McCabe are dedicated and tough - especially in defence. Im more than happy for AF to fill in at No.12 when required, and McCabe has the ability to be a good No.13. At the moment however, each is being played out of position and it disrupts the flow of the backline. Also, it was McCabe that missed the initial tackle on Nonu in the semi. A couple of phases later, that led to the the subsequent try by Nonu. Does this mean McCabe is a poor defender? Of course not. Nonu is a great threat. However we picked a side to prevent such missed tackles, and the second we let in that try, the chances of our winning shrank dramatically, as we had no ability to score points with the side selected. Nonu has played against the likes of Barnes, JOC etc for years, and I cant recall any consistent misses by any of our young guns. All those young guys are very strong, and I really dont see them as a weakness provided you do have your enforcers like AAC/Digby/Cummins/taps etc that can put in the big tackles when required, not to mention hurt the opposition in attack. If you go back to 2010, once Cooper returned we lost by 1 point to NZ, then defeated them in HK (no major probs in defence, but all of our tries were well constructed - not one off individual efforts). We were belted up front by England who was on fire, but responded well against France, and made their big backs look silly. In regards to defence in general, it was a hallmark of all of our sides until Deans got the top job.

agree with most of that dave, but, the problem with the coopers, beales, oconnors is that they are limited in other ways eg: defence. no good being able to score points if you cant stop them. and a backline with those mentioned will be absolutely destroyed on defence by any competent attack. moreover, i dont even think it would be that great of a backline anyway due to too many "me" type players who dont work well as a unit very well at all. and this is the key to a good backline: teamwork. although i dont really rate deans, he is in a bit of a predicament as to how to form a solid backline unit. you pick the hornes, aac etc of the world and get good defence but limited attack, or the opposite with the coopers, beales etc. all good players individually to be sure, but very rarely play as a unit to truley open up a defence consistantly. could you say the backline from the early 2000s was particularly skillful and dynamic on an individual basis (compared to the likes of oconnor,beale,cooper)? i dont think so, but they had what you alluded to, and that was brains and a common purpose as a unit. deans just seems to not know how to put together the right mix and that is the problem. maybe its the players themselves that are just not up to it, or buying into what deans is trying to instill. either way, the ideas arent working. when someone like samo gets picked, who is still living off 2 tries he scored last year, then heaven help you guys. all this said, the gameday 22 will still cause more than enough problems for the opposition, just the "how" may change each game.

The Cooper-McCabe combination won the Tri-Nations. Granted, the other two teams weren't trying very hard to win the comp, but I think you'd have a hard time proving that McCabe's presence makes Cooper a worse player. And I don't agree that Barnes is easily rattled at all. If that were true, he would have turned in some abysmal performances against the Welsh (the best team the Northern Hemisphere has to offer, remember) rather than the two man of the match awards he came up with instead. Look at the first match of the series. The Wallabies were coming off a loss to Scotland, for goodness' sake, and people were talking about the Wallabies getting whitewashed. Over the course of a day, Barnes attends the birth of his first boy, races down to Melbourne, and plays one of the best games of his career outside of an admittedly brilliant Will Genia. If his performance during the Super Rugby season shows anything, it is that that there isn't a player anywhere in Australia (or possibly the world) that the Waratahs can't make look terrible. I honestly can't think of a single player who has improved his game after moving to the 'Tahs. They're a benchmark for mediocrity. I feel very sorry for Michael Hooper, but he really should have known better. And the Waratahs are the reason for the aimless kicking Barnes partakes in. They have braindead tactics, and he is forced to play accordingly. He plays much better for the Wallabies than he does for the clowns up the Hume. And really, you have to ask yourself, 'who wouldn't'?

Who cares if NZ picks a backline of Lomu, SBW, Tana, Cullen, Spencer and Carter? Play our own bloody game, and stop being paranoid over who is in the NZ side. The current Wallabies backs are the most talented group of individuals that have represented Australia since the glory days of the late 90's. We have an abundance of once in a generation players - Cooper, Genia, Beale and JOC - plus Digby as one of the most destructive runners ever seen, and Mitchell as one of the best finishers. What we lack is a coach who can deliver a blue print for victory. The current coach has had since 2008 to meld the young side together, and despite FINALLY giving supporters something to cheer about in 2010, he takes a suicidal backflip weeks out from the WC and brings in severly limited players like McCabe, AF, and Horne - all of whom completely negate our sleek backline which defeated NZ for the first time in years, and slaughtered the WC finalists France in their Capital. Australian teams wont out muscle the all blacks, SA, or England. We use smart tactics to offset our weaker forwards, combined with creative backline plays to keep their defence guessing. Deans has us trying to... Well who knows? I dont think a single Wallaby supporter who takes anymore than a passing interest in the game thinks that a combined backline of Barnes, Horne, AF will do anything but waste viewers time against NZ. They are all limited players in their own right - and their coaches have no plan for them anyway. Instead this is what SBW should be thinking - 'Will Cooper will throw a blind inside ball to a steaming digby down my channel? He can pass really far - maybe he will throw a 30 metre ball to Beale? Nonu has come in pretty close as the Wallabies normally just hit it up one out...That side of the field looks really open... Oh gee perhaps Cooper could put a kick across field to Drew, should I rush him to charge that down? Wait a second, he steps like Benji, I dont want that footage to ruin my reputation... I might decide to come back to rugby at some point... Hmmm its not this complicated in league, I might just wait and see what he does first...' Lets go out with the intention of trying to defeat NZ using the skills of our players. That should be our approach and mentality. Not this meek surrender attitude of worrying about who our opponents pick. We may not have the huge depth of of some countries, but I'd match the best 22 of Australia against the best 22 of any nation - NZ included. Please ARU end this nightmare and get rid of Deans

Well Faingaa actually needs to touch the ball first before he can pass it. In all his games for the wallabies i reckon he gets three or four touches a game

Sorry, Peter, but your information is faulty. Those ten tests that we lost to the All Blacks, Barnes wasn't at 10 for any of them. Not even once. Look it up if you don't believe me. But it wouldn't matter even if he was. The circumstances under which we scored ten consecutive loses against the ABs were very different to how things are now. James O'Connor hadn't come into the starting team until seven of those losses had been racked up. Kurtley Beale hadn't made it into the side until nine of those losses had been racked up. Instead we had sensations of the game like Richard Brown fronting up to the likes of Jerome Kaino (2009 Tri-Nations); Peter Hynes against Sitiveni Sivivatu (2008 Tri-Nations); Salesi Ma'afu against Tony Woodcock (2010 Tri-Nations)! You can't blame Barnes, or even the actual flyhalf (it was mostly Matt Giteau, for the record) for the trainwrecks we kept lining up against the best team in the world. Times have changed, and we should be comparing apples to apples. The only fair way that you can compare Barnes and Cooper is to examine their performances while playing flyhalf in a team that has included David Pocock, Scott Higginbotham, Will Genia, James O'Connor and Kurtley Beale. And the reason for that is because it is very easy for players of that standard to make you look much better than you actually are, which I think is true of Cooper, and also of Barnes to some extent. And if you have a look at recent history, I think you'd have to concede that Barnes' results while playing in that kind of a team have been much better than Cooper's.

Some of your comments regarding Cooper are a bit harsh i think Rob. Yes he was rattled at the World Cup, however the selection of McCabe outside him certainly added to the pressure that was put on him, as well as having lots of vitriol and spite directed toward him by the "fans".. Barnes has shown this year he can be rattled on a much smaller stage than the WC, as evidenced by some of his very poor decision making during the Tahs games, when the games were there to be won. Cooper stood up in the Super 15 final last year, and was an important contributor in the games the wallabies won last year, so it is, in my opinion, perhaps a bit harsh to suggest he is a psychological liabilty compared to Barnes. Your comments on defence are reasonable, though it is obvious that he is defending better this year than he was previously. As for Cooper taking stupid risks, yes he has been guilty of this in the past. However sometimes the risks he takes pay off and we all celebrate his genius. Does he need to temper his play a bit? Perhaps. And i think we've seen signs of that in his performances this year. The big problem I have with Barnes is his aimless kicking. Given the dangers of handing a quality attacking team possession it could actually be argued that Cooper is a less risky option than Barnes. With Barnes you just know he is going to kick away possession, even turn-over ball and thus allow the opposition to run it right back at the Wallabies from broken field play. Thus Barnes' so called conservative play is potentially the higher risk play.