A look ahead: My Wallabies 2015 Rugby World Cup squad

What abysmal selections. No disrespect to players. How can the runners up get only 2 players in the forwards when they dominate OLD and others at the breakdown and set piece. Explain the thinking on this

I know he isn't the greatest winger in the world, but if you think he is that bad, I don't think you've watched him play that much, or you don't really have a grasp on the role of a winger. He can’t: Kick - Why would a winger need to kick? Catch a highball - He is fine at catching highballs Pass - Wingers are the last in the line of backs. It's so rare he would pass Tackle - Have you actually watched him? Step - He busts through people Have the strength to bump players off - See above point Fend - See above point He can; Run straight at a decent pace - "Decent" HA! See Force vs Waratahs at NIB Stadium in 2014. I can't believe I just went through that much effort to tell someone they are wrong.

I briefly returned from my hiatus, read down about 10 posts and saw the same old state v state cr@p still going on, and left again.

Train - that's the point of standardising the results as I posted earlier - comparing apples with apples, instead of me just relying on him kicking more goals than anyone else. He came in worse than I thought actually @ 13th out of 30, but it's still the right side of the average, and above quite a few notables - regardless of how many games they played - it adjusts for that. Anyhow - you've worn me out with your relentless approach. I do hope Wallabies and who ever else you follow have a good season otherwise I'll be worried for your health. Have a good one mate!

Danny of course he kicked more goals than anybody else. He played more games than all bar one team, and their goal kicker, Dan Carter, didn't play the whole season. At the times those stats were compiled, 29 April, 9 games - halfway for Foley, he had attempted 1 more shot than Cooper, and kicked 1 more goal than Cooper. Now as Cooper only played 12 of a total 16 games of the season and Foley played 19 due to finals. Of course he kicked higher. He played 7 more games. He kicked more because A) the Waratahs scored more tries to kicked more conversions and B) because he played the entire season. So many of the other goal kicking options didn't. Dan Carter and Christian Lealiifano the first choice kickers for the Crusaders and Brumbies, 2 of the other 5 teams that played close to as many games, missed a number of games due to injury. Kicking more goals, because you had more shots DOES NOT make you better. Kicking more goals because you kicked at a higher percentage may. Whilst that model is not perfect, but it takes into consideration the difficulty. Because at the end of the day, if you only kick penalties that are directly in front and never miss one, that doesn't mean you are as good as a guy that takes every shot inside his half and never misses one. I'm not saying it should solely be relied upon, but I'm using as evidence to support my claim that Foley's kicking is high percentage because he takes high percentage options. There are a lot of variables in there, because reviewing the quality of a kicker has a lot of variables. I know you like to think, he kicked more total goals = he's better but that doesn't include variables like amount of shots taken and difficulty of shots made. When you do that, you get something like what they have put together.

Mate - he can't have declined too many, he kicked more goals than anyone ! I don't understand that "logic"? I watched most of his games and don't recall that he was not converting / turning down kick opportunities from closer than 10m to the sideline. In any case, it's the captains decision. When penalties are awarded, there is also the opportunity to kick for touch, and go for a try. This sort of behaviour seemed to stand the Tahs in good stead this year, but less so when playing internationals (I refer to Hooper electing to kick for touch rather than kick at goal Vs England. I guess you suggest he did that because he didn't have faith in Foley kicking them - the guy who kicked the most goals in S15 2014 with a near 80% success rate). I've looked at the model the Sth African guys have put together & frankly there are a LOT of variables in there which ultimately attempt to weight various aspects of the game to determine a 'real' value of a kicker. That is simply a model Train, not saying it isn't worth the paper it's written on but you should absolutely not rely solely on that when deciding a kickers value. Happy for you to base your opinion on a model which you don't understand how it works though! Lots of "models" were relied upon during the GFC too BTW.......

Dannyray I suggest you give this a read: http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/splitting-the-posts/ There are no stats for where the kicks are from. You have to watch the game for those. And I didn't say he cannot kick them, I said his percentage is based on declining them for penalty goal attempts.

Train - These are just the stats off a website that records rugby data - if you google it, you'll see. I just normalised the S15 totals for 2014. I don't have test match data. Foley's average minus the mean %, divided by the standard deviation of each kicker. Standard deviation takes into account the number of kicks, which is why I suggested to you that it does matter how many attempts you have at goal. In any case, this year Foley kicked the most goals out of everyone (89 conversions Vs Beauden Barrett next nearest at 72). Where do you get your stats regarding not being able to kick them from > 10m near the sideline ? I have not looked at every kick he's had this season admittedly. BTW - I just watched a clip on Tahs V Brumbies Semi-final. BF has an amazing hand in the whole sequence, from a try saving tackle on Tomane, a long pass to Folau & then backs up the whole thing on the inside with an amazing ball from Will Skelton ! When I see criticism of players suggesting they can't pass a long ball, are ineffective organisers of the game, make poor choices and then see trys like that, I can't help but think it's just that you don't like them. Anyhow - we agree to disagree.

Dannyray, let's be clear. Nobody is criticizing Foley'y goal kicking. We are criticizing your claim that he is superior by any significant margin. His goal kicking is perfectly fine. Kicking at 78% regardless of the penalties he takes is a good effort as you cannot choose the try conversions to kick. But any logic that his goal kicking is an attribute that he should be picked over other players for is something that I would disagree with. For that, you would need to be a player kicking 80% any time you get into the opposition half. And that's not the case. Foley is kicking near 80% and taking any shot which is within the 40 and more than 10m from the sideline. I'm interested to know where those stats come from also. Foley kicked at 78% and basically has consistently done that all season, so it's likely any time you took the stats, they would be at them. Quade kicked at 75% for the time he played Super Rugby. That's a lot of players between them considering they have a 3% difference.

Talent - I agree with a lot of what you have to say there actually. I know QC has plenty to offer, but also his mistakes can be enormous - the kind that are unnecessary, like Campo's infamous 1987 RWC pass. We just don't need that sort of "flair". This is probably my biggest problem with him. I am aware he's made improvements and I'd like to see more of them - that's all I've suggested in previous posts. What I don't rate about the criticism of BF is the goal kicking chat nonsense. I've just done a quick sanity check of kicking stats of 2014 kicking and out of 30 kickers, he's ranked 13th when you standardise the numbers. The order is as follows from best to worst: Handre Pollard Demitri Catrakilis Marnitz Boshoff Simon Hickey Lima Sopoaga Michael Harris J Potgieter Jayden Hayward Colin Slade Johan Goosen Fran Steyn Bernard Foley Hayden Parker Kurt Coleman Tim Swiel Tom taylor Patrick Lambie Sias Eberson Jason Woodward QC Ihaia West Beauden Barrett Elton Jantjies Nic White Gareth Ainscombe Aaron Cruden Dan Carter Elgar Graeme Watts Peter Grant Christian Lealiifano Of the noted international kickers (i.e play for their country regularly), only Fran Steyn is above him & he's actually almost the same score. Personally - I think Foley gets better in 2015, but it will certainly be interesting viewing QC Vs. BF and Reds Vs Tahs. Reds should have a really solid year on paper. Would be great to see it leading into a RWC year. All the best.

I don't reckon Beale will make it to the end of the Super Rugby season uninjured, and will be out of contention for World Cup selection. I have no doubt that there are more than a few Australian players who are quietly seething at him bringing the Wallabies into disrepute and itching to teach him a lesson he will never forget. A big, bald rake springs to mind, who hates bad off field behaviour doesn't mind dishing out rough justice. What goes on at the bottom of the ruck stays there, wait and see.

AJH - agree, Kerevi has huge potential, and must be considered. But we need someone like QC to maximise their potential, not a shoveler like BF. Hunt is also a freakish talent and I think he will make it as well. We just need Pockock and Moore back with the other forwards playing at 110% and we are a chance.

Dannyray, BF has certainly worked on his game and is clearly a better player than when he started, but so has QC. No one works harder than QC on improving his game. I agree with your view that QC could run with the ball more, but he has shown glimpses of this on the recent tour. Yes, both are different players and I suppose one player is more traditional, has a good pass, can pop the ball and show and go. But not much else. The other is less predictable, always trying something different, has a brilliant pass off both sides and occasionally makes glaring mistakes - I say occasionally, but always makes defences doubt themselves. The choice between the two boils down to creative genius vs more consistent blandness. The real issue is which approach is more likely to deliver a World Cup. My view is the current defensive patterns are so good that consistent blandness will unlikely unlock a good defensive opposition, hence QC is my choice and in adddition his strategic game management, vis a vis general kicking, is clearly better and this is vital in world cups. And I want to be entertained at the same time, not bored. I have better things to do with my limited time. Give us more QC please, otherwise I will stop watching international rugby when Aus are involved. And I mean that.

Brett - fully agree with your squad except for one name; Beale will be in at 15. Very dangerous with Falou on the wing.

Sample size matters. But only if it's too small. If we were looking at a sample size of 2 games, then yes. But when we are talking 150 shots vs 100, then it's not realy relevan any more. You are saying he's a better kicker because he kicked more goals. I'm saying that's because he took more shots. Once we stop looking at small sample size data examples, the sample size of the data isn't really relevant unless we are looking at completely different pools (like 5 seasons vs 1 season). We aren't. We are looking at something like 32 games vs 15 games. If we reduce Foley's sample size to his last 15 games it changes from 78% to 77%. So I don't see how his number shots at goals making any real difference.

Train - If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. Studied statistics have you ? If you had, you would know that sample size does in fact matter. Comparing someone with a lot of kick attempts to someone with few kick attempts - even if they have the same conversion rate, will mean that the one with many attempts is statistically better. In this case, that's Foley. True, it doesn't take into account from where on the field the kicks were taken, what stage in the game they were taken, whether it was wet or dry. You can factor those elements into a model as the Sth African fellas have attempted to do, but in the end, it is simply a model. Models paint a picture, and are used as a guide, but are by no means meant to be relied upon singularly. It's not a revelation, it's just factual. Go get a text book or google it.... I'm not saying that he's a better kicker because he had more shots at goal. I am saying he is a better kicker because he has a high success rate (similar to that of the top kickers) but he kicked LOT more goals. I would have thought this is pretty clear even for an intellectual amoeba like you. Go do some real research & let us know what you find!

"Foley had by far the highest number of kicks at goal & the highest absolute successful conversions." What an absolute revelation there. Foley had the most shots at goal, and kicked more goals. That number means absolutely nothing, other than he had more shots. Foley is not a better kicker because he had more shots at goal. If he has a higher % than yes he may be. But even the, that doesn't consider the shots he chooses to take.

Alot of good calls in there mate

I reckon you can fit a few more players in that emerged from the nsw system.

What pocock has delivered is that much better than any of our other options and he should be given every opportunity to reclaim his rightful position. We're trying to win the World Cup not get as many tahs players in starting positions as we can. It might benefit the confidence of your players but it won't get us out of the group stages. Fight fire with fire? The best form of defense is attack? We have to roll the dice on our proven champions and not play it safe picking players who have a chance of one day maybe having an impact at test level. Fortune favours the bold! Foot solidiers aren't remembered in the history books but they sure help write them. Foley and co will be essential to the World Cup but there not ready to be main chess pieces. 'Form' players we're picked in total for the last World Cup over old heads that had seen a battle or 2. We MUST learn from our mistakes!