Wallabies lack maturity: Hoiles

Dark days in Australian rugby.

”who else in the aus backs performed better than JOC?”

yes , that is the sensible choice. best example is Mathieu Bastareaud, the French 12 who caused a Diplomatic issue in 2009 in NZ. after a couple of years on the sidelines, he cleaned up the act and is now playing well and more importantly performing at a level where the National selectors cannot ignore him. it seems some of the boys need psychiatric help, seriously. It is not new ; the South African cricket team , Indian Cricket team used Paddy Upton as " mental conditioning coach" when Garry Kirsten was the head coach. India won the world cup in 2011 and were the no 1 team. then south africa became the no 1 team. common to both teams were Kirsten and Upton .

aac, izzy AND cl

I've just read this on the South African website...keo.co.za... "Ewen McKenzie sounded more like Walter Mitty in declaring progress had been made with his yellow-belly Wobblies. The Australians, those not so brave pretenders who rolled over in Brisbane and played dead, currently are not good enough to win in South Africa. It is a matter of by how much they will lose in Cape Town next weekend. McKenzie spoke of Australia’s need to match the physicality of the Boks and to front in the scrums and in the collisions. Get real Ewen. Brisbane was men against boys and the boys certainly did not turn into men in sneaking a one point win against the Pumas in Perth. The Wallabies have not won in Cape Town since 1992 – and while they’ve had narrow losses (three and four points on two occasions) this squad doesn’t possess the quality of those predecessors that came close. Bringing back prop Ben Robinson to make the difference is scraping the barrel. McKenzie, so impressive as a Super Rugby coach with the Reds, has not had quite the same presence with the national side. As a Super Rugby coach – and columnist with SA Rugby Magazine – he always came across as informed, insightful and articulate. The false bravado with the Wobblies does him a disservice. I guess he has to talk his team up, but it may serve him better to shut up while his team hardens up. There’s a Chopper Reid skit McKenzie may want to have a look at. He may also want to show his squad that to be competitive in South Africa his team needs to harden the F@*k UP! ‘We didn’t get to the gameplan we wanted to last time and so we’ve still got stuff up our sleeve we haven’t tried yet. ‘But you’ve got to be able to impose yourself physically on the game, that’ll be an important part of it,’ said McKenzie ‘It’s not like they were way out of our league. We’re not going to go there to make up the numbers, we’ve put a lot of thought into the potential composition of the team and how we might go about it.’ Yeah right mate. Now listen to Chopper and get your boys to Harden the F@8k UP before talking about physically wanting to match the Springboks in South Africa." Article written by keo Follow @http://twitter.com/mark_keohane on Twitter. 15 Comments

(Mick says quietly to self "I'll give this a run around the block to see if it works") Perhaps Cliff (Bishkek) the oddly misshapen Li'l O'Dollar hasn't experienced much overseas travel and is unused to the practices and protocols in their airline terminals? They are very, very big buildings - he might be a bit overawed - and he is, after all, only a kid (I read that last bit here, on The Roar).

Mania you are way off beam - way off -- if it is true - then he goes - a long way from Aus Rugby. Sorry mate, how many opportunities to repent and change must a person be given. The reasons why it all happened, coming through re why everyone is sinking the boot into JOC - are mainly wrong. There needs to be an investigation. However the idea of an "over officious" airline official - sorry I travel many miles in my work - mainly overseas and it is a known that any sort of problem in a terminal and you will be outside the terminal and in some countries in jail. JOC needs to wake up. Many times I have been about ready to explode on "seating" - but with airlines - sit back and be calm - and results happen - shout and scream and it does not. Be forceful but calm. Police do not escort people out of lounges, customs or terminal on the "whim" of an airline official. They check and ask first --- and AFP - do question - but I will agree - the passenger is assumed guilty until proved innocent. Also the airline official -- would need to be careful because if it comes back to haunt him -- he loses his job. So unless a terrible injustice has been done - THEN - JOC HAS STEPPED OVER A MARK TO BE ESCORTED OUT!!

get rid of him for a year he will pull his head in then, he is a good player he just needs a wake up call

MattyP - its the stuff that he doesnt know thats going to bite WBs in the azz. like giving up the chase when habana burnt him. a league reflex as hhabana would either score or u can get him on the next tackle. also couple times folau with his size woulda been real useful hitting a ruck but he doesnt know how.

Isn't that the point mania? Yes he has deficiencies, so no point having him on the pitch if you are exploiting his key strength to the max - running the ball.

hurl - i was a pretty destructive child when i was joc's age. i refer to that period as my dark years. dif is i wasnt playing rugby at the time . jocs a dumb kid involved in a lot of misdemeanors. he has a lot of potential and can offer aus rugby a lot of years still. sure punish him but lets not get too mob mental. ironically it was going back and playing rugby that got me away from the lifestyle of partying and gettting into trouble.

and here i thought the only culture in Australia was yoghurt

I've heard lots of people say the problem with the Wallabies is the culture. Surely turfing JOC out is the first step to clearing up the culture? People are always worried about clearing out dead wood because they think there's nobody else, but the Wallabies will be better for it -- other people will step up, new talent will emerge, and in a few years people will be saying 'JOC who?'

I say AAC he isn't flashy but he turns up every game and gives his best. The same attributes i loved in nathan sharpe. If the rest of the team went into the games with the same attitude they wouldn't be in this predicament. I'd rather have a team of so called journeymen ( like AAC ) who give their all, than a team of 11 average and 4 superstar players anytime.

Gene, I hear what you are saying about Timani, however, he needs to get a huge injection of smarts, because he either doesn't understand the rules, or is not smart enough to take advantage, like the AB and BOK forwards do at crucial times of a match!!

Peugeot, you are right, rugby has zero public profile -- as you say, that's not by accident. It's a crying shame.

mania, that depends on whether you watch the games or read the papers. If it's the latter, the answer is Israel Falou.

I had lunch yesterday with some very decent people. I turned the conversation to rugby and simply asked if they watch the game. Everyone said they do and proceeded to talk about South Sydney, the Storm and the Roosters. Rugby has zero public profile. When it did finally register that Rugby and League were different games, one friend mentioned hearing that a player had been jailed in Bali for being drunk and fighting with police! Rugby suffers from ineffective marketing and poor grass roots development. If senior players poor public behaviour, when proven, is condoned, we consign the code to being a novelty, a side- show with little to attract parents to have their children be involved. Some Roarers have said that being drunk at an airport is just something that happens to everyone and that you simply sober up and take another flight. That, to me, is pathetic and childish in itself irrespective of whether or not JOC is guilty.

yeah hurl i hear u loud n clear and i agree. but the circumstances should be mitigated because he is a talent. when he's on the field he plays as if he's a veteran. JGITF? folau has loads of talent but he has a lot to learn as well. folaus offense is awesome. his defensive positioning tho is suspect and he doesnt know when to hit a ruck plus a whole bunch of other little things that he still has to learn.

JGITF ;-)

But to be honest Mania thats exactly whats going to happen and for the life of me, why doesn't O'Conner see it comming? Surely he knows the Wb are under public pressure. Any reason to give the public a chance to vent is going to be snapped up with open arms. Scapegoats are handy things and surely he knows how he's perceived with the fan base. How hard is it to keep your nose clean? Maybe the problem is he doesn't recognise when he's getting it dirty. As Ben Tune said. Does this guy live in the same world as the rest of us..(or something like that)