Wallabies thrash France in Brisbane

Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. Thanks though soap I've enjoyed this

quite possible max, he still would have had the ball often in his career and would have often been in positions where a two on one was on and (without any real evidence at hand) he would have often put a winger in for a try, if he didnt he would have gone himslef and got the most out of it. like i sadi above if he was able to manage these situations theres no way he would have been put in at centre in rep teams

The other thing to keep in mind is that Izzy's team would have avoided directing the attack down his side of the field on the 4th tackle because it would have eliminated the option of kicking to him on the 5th.

max i have no such stats so i think your guess and my long term memory might be the best we'll have to go on. i will point out however that that move you describe is used my most teams on the goal lone attack where the opposition doesnt have the luxury of backing off. they wouldnt have been usiing that move even once every set of six. certainly in 2008 teams werent building their entire structure around it. the bulldogs really set that trend off 2 years ago. you are vastly overstating the occurrence of that move in those teams. anyway i'm not saying that folau would have had to draw a fullback more than a once or twice a game even. but it would have happened often enough and when it happened he would have had to be able to deliver, otherwise he wouldnt have reached the heights he did. plus he would have had to feed his winger a couple of times a game without buggering it up so he would have had to pass competently to do that. honestly would they really play someone at centre for the kangaroos if he couldnt manage a simple two on one (after all this is what we're actually talking about, not the 30m quade specials which i'm sure he couldnt do)

This is becoming quite long and tangential. I'm sorry he obviously did play more centre than I recall. However, I would love to see a stat for the average number of passes per game for Folau at centre, or any other league centre for that matter. I venture a guess it wouldn't be very many. During a game he would have rarely touched the ball before the 3rd tackle, save for passing or running from dummy half. When in attack both Melbourne and the Broncos (and by extension Queensland and Australia due to the influence of Lockyer, Slater, Hunt and lesser extend Cronk during Folau's time in league) use/d an attacking structure which involves the fullback coming in as a second man behind some forward decoy runners and ball playing for either the edge second rower, the centre or winger hitting a hole. With this structure Folau would rarely have had to draw-and-pass and probably off-loaded in the tackle more often, especially in the instance of "saving himself" like you mentioned.

actually scratch that, he played more centre than i remembered, dally m centre of the year for 2008 while at the storm after playing the season there, and quite a few games there in 2007. made his debut for australia at centre and was at centre fot aus's loss to nz in the 2008 wc final. the folau was a winger thing is a bit of a myth which only becomes moe apparent the more you look into it

he played 2 season of centre at the broncos and 2 seasons of wing at the storm. he did play wing solely at rep level but these few games kinda pale when compared to 26 rounds (or whatever it is now) plus finals for your club. therefore its not really accurate to say he played wing for most of his career. he spent a whole lot of his career at centre, perhaps people dont think about it because they saw him mostly in rep games and assumed he was always a winger. i agree he wasnt a "ball player" but in all that time at right centre he would have had to be able to pass to his winger fairly regularly. at least to be able "to save himself". perhaps not conclusive evidence that his draw and pass ability was a league product but it at least deals with the main reason being given as why he couldnt. lets look at the rest then quickly being right handed means little. he's been a pro footballer since he was 17 so its not that unlikely he would have learned skills with both hands. ur right many dont in league as they favour one side but i) those guys tend not to get to origin and australia and ii) fairly sure folau played right side which would have specifically required him to pass that way required him to. i cant really comment too much on the specific example you gave eihter way. i have no doubt his long passing game isnt the best around (thats something that isnt common to have in league) so maybe they were some distance away but thats just speculation as neither of us really can know the reason for him to do the action you described (reading players minds isnt really solid evidence)

He played right wing rather than centre for most of his career so he wouldn't have passed to his right much at all. He moved to centre at the Broncos but played the majority of his rugby league on the wing (Storm, State of Origin, Australia). And besides, any ball-playing or long passing down the right side would likely have come from either Billy Slater or Karmichael Hunt, depending on which team he was playing for, and not from Izzy. Plus he's right handed so, like most right handers, the left-to-right pass isn't a natural motion for him. There were several instances last season for the Waratahs when he took the ball into contact on kick returns instead of shifting the ball because he obviously didn't trust himself to make the pass to a player on his right. The draw-and-pass on Saturday night was perfect so he's obviously improved his passing game a lot but I don't think you can chalk it up to his time in league.

except didnt he play right centre for the broncos? doesnt really indicate he couldnt pass left to right to save his life.

mike you really have no idea if you think that delaying that pass and drawing the fullback wouldnt have put cummins in for the try. though i suspect this is one of those occasions where you know you're wrong but cant urself to admit that perhaps AAC didnt have the perfect game so you make a ridiculous statement instead.

Johnno, Agreed about Shute Shield, although I have noticed that this year’s crowds, at Milner, are larger and there seems to be more interest in grass roots Rugby. I was disappointed at the 33 plus thousand at Lang Park. There should have been more. Like you I see nothing wrong with a limited number of imports in the Super teams. However, I believe two things should happen first and this applies to International Rugby, the defending team should be 5 metres from the attaching side and way Rugby manages the video decisions must be changed and speeded. There is too much procrastination by the one field and video refs. I still believe that French International Rugby will decline, as has English Soccer, for exactly the same reason, lack of support for development of local players, when it is much easier to buy an established star from other nations and other codes. MajB

Call me a nostalgic old timer, but I still get dreamy eyed reflecting on those beautifully delayed passes from Danny Herbert as he sent yet another winger to the line. Then came Mortlock - prince of the barge and die - and wingers would go into the rooms without a mark on them.

Robbie seemed to believe that the wallabies lacked the ball skills to execute a running game plan so he always kept it simple played it safe. Just as he did at the reds, mckenzie somehow gets the players to throw the ball around with minimal errors. Amazing how confidence improves skills!

No need Mike you are a classic

What is your problem? I stop watching a game that was one way traffic and now you put words in my mouth? Go play somewhere else mate, you are far too sensitive for this.

Typical arrogant South African comment.You'd never give the Wallabies any accolades, would you ? You can only play what's in front of you. I reckon Mckenzie would be be pretty happy.

Have import restrcitons yes but 5 per-team is fine for me MAJB. Because club comp interest brings in revenue and interest. Super rugby has been devalued with the obsession with the national team being the no 1 priority, and wallabies have regressed, as well as grassroots rugby and shute shield been pushed way down the food chain.

AAC missed more tackles against the French than TK. TK made 9/10 tackles AAC 4/6. TK made 58 metres from 9 runs AAC 49 metres from 10 runs. Stats indicate TK did better than AAC in attack and defence.

Alexander being out injured did not help our front row. But it is the place we really lack depth.

under McKenzie the attack has multiple waves of attackers with decoy runners and multiple angled runners. Virtually no use of crash ball from 12. Also a large use of support players with a lot of offloading. Under Deans they just shuffled it wide without putting the defence in 2 minds or had mccabe run crashball. Very little skills and more recycle ball from rucks with fewer offloads. Not at all similar in attack.