Rugby World Cup tales of the future past

Thanks, Sheek. The Boks will have to learn that tackling and running well and hard all game is still one of those immutable winning rugby laws. Win the collision.

Thank you Sheek. I wish the All Blacks would learn that when the other team floods the ruck that we must adapt to what is in front of us and not take for granted that individual skills will dig us out of a hole.

If we don't win the future, then we'll win in the pasture.

G'day Sheek IMO, if anything is to be learned from the past, it is never to be complacent and stay committed, in pursuit of your goals. Having said that and being the superstitious bugger that I am, I think for me personally, the similarities with 1991 RWC seem to spring to mind as a downright, nasty omen. From 1987 RWC to those 1991 pre-RWC tests, the ABs had the wood on the WBs in all but one drawn test, in 1988. The loss in Sydney was as you quite rightly stated, regarded as a blip but IMO, the return test in Auckland, was the nail in the coffin, for the ABs. I put those two results down to the new captain (Gary Whetton) and the arrogance of the senior players, themselves. We had lost Buck Shelford, John Drake, John Schuster, Warwick Taylor and a couple of defections to RL while Michael Jones was coming back from a serious knee injury the previous year, Fitzy, Zinzan B, Bernie McCahill were still new kids on the block - and of course, the biggest blunder the NZRU could do by selecting two coaches who both had huge egos, for their own good. All was not well on the good ship HMNZ AB and going into RWC, it looked like the ship had already sprung a leak - one that took 6 more games before, the ship eventually, went down. Thankfully IMO, we don't have a similar set-up with this current side with the advent of a senior players group; we don't have a couple of coaches but rather a group that has shown huge respect for each other and what they have achieved and want to achieve and finally, a constant introduction of new talent over the last 3 years that has been, I think, reason for everyone to share and become inclusive instead of exclusive - which is how I perceive what happened back in 1991. Fingers x-ed then, that this current version of HMNZ AB is all well and any potential leaks, have been identified and plugged, permanently.

What colour socks did England wear in 2003?

What has Hansen been doing whilst Cheika was coaching the tahs. Sfa

As a general rule: Grumpy old men were grumpy when they were young men. Wise old men were wise when they were young men. The opposite of these two general statements is also generally true. Its very rare in this world for people to actually change their ways you see. My point is that experience, good or bad, is over-rated. You are just as likely to learn things, good or bad, from a younger person as you are from an older one. You are just as likely, probabaly more so, to find relevance in modern practices as older ones. You are jus as likely, probably more so, to find significance in current affairs as you are from history.

Thanks Sheek An enjoyable read. As you say what people learn from there past (and present) determins how they will act and react in the future

Wise old men? Yeah because everything was just great in the past and older people never have biased opinions, are never stubborn, old fashioned or out of touch. They know it all. Shaw's phrase was meant to suggest that young people squander the gift of youth and if the only knew of what a gift it was, not that old people know it all ffs. Research shows that older people tend to be more prejudiced and less likely to adopt a new way of thinking. That sounds like the opposite to wisdom to me. Everyone of all ages has wisdom to offer but maybe older people have far to often been dismissive of what younger people contribute. Sonetimes it takes generations for positive change because, as bad as it sounds, we have to wait for the prejudice of older generations to die out.

There is a lot to learn from the past. However you need to be smart about it. Some things in the past are irrelevant, meaningless. Some things in the past are worth paying attention to. I have read, multiple times, that you must win 7 games in a row to win the WC. This is clearly nonsense but people say "YOU DO, no team has ever won the WC having lost a game". Thay is an example of looking at the past and being stup1d about it. I mean, no team has ever won the WC wearing blue socks either but that doesnt make it impossible to win it wearing them! I do think you can learn from a mistake and I do think it can give you a reality check but I also think that it is no omen or a necessity to do well in a WC. Back in the day people thought they had learned from the past when sacrificing people to the gods to get a good harvest, now we know that wasnt such a good idea. So if one thing is for certain, its that learning from your past may be just making an error in judgement by any other name.

Well I still believe that Genia is Australia's best halfback…. I think Chieka will be rocked by Phipp's performance on Sat. He has put his faith in him as his number one, but you simply can't have a halfback spraying the ball everywhere and expect to keep winning matches. But it's not so long ago that everyone had knives out for White as well - so it will be an acutely interesting selection.

Sheek, nice work. You are probably a bit of a Cassandra, continuing the classical allusions. Don't waste any ink on the Gen Y critics, it will take all of their longer lifetimes to realise that the wise old blokes, did know what they were talking about. George Bernard Shaw once said that 'youth is wasted on the young' he was talking about your young critic. What I like about the Wallaby set up now is that we have a coach who gets the key performance ingredient for success in anything...mindset. Other successful Aussie coaches knew this. It is the way to ultimately prevail. A total team effort with one focus. To rely on individual brilliance is a distractor. The great All Black and Wallaby sides did have individually brilliant players but the secret ingredient was team belief and focus. Getting the lesser lights to raise their performance does more to the bottom line than catering to the whims of the stars. Cheika gets this. I was a bit concerned about our long range place kick exponent. Bled 1 answered that. Now who is going to the winning drop goal in our great battle of attrition this week at Eden Park?

Sorry Sheek, I meant no disrespect and I didn't articulate my position very well. I think history is relevant, but I don't believe it alone determines future outcomes (noting that this is certainly not the argument you are posturing here). What I am referring to, was many opinions from ABs fans that a loss on Saturday night is a good omen for the year, considering that they lost at Suncorp in 2011 (sparked by a great Radike Samo try I had the honour of bearing witness to) and went on to win the WC. I believe the exact opposite is true in these circumstances. Although I do not believe the ABs era is over, it should concern them that they can't start games well and have to rely on dead legs to get them through. What happens when this plan doesn't work? Saturday night happens. I think the ABs have a better team this year than they did in 2011, and if they can learn from Saturday night then hopefully it won't repeat itself again, not this season anyway. From a Wallaby perspective though, I think its great to see 74,000 fans at a game again and hopefully this win can put them back into the grace of the Golden Era that Eales, Kearns, Campese, Horan and Gregan grew from.

Thanks Sheek, very interesting as always. 2003 was remarkable, the AB's ran in tries like it was touch rugby in Sydney, yet the transformation by the time of the cup was stunning and swift. To that end some AB's supporters will feel that Saturday was not a bad loss to have at this time - although I'm betting that Steve Hansen would have much preferred a 50 point win and to back himself to keep he and his team better grounded that John Mitchell did.

An enjoyable read. its always fun to remmeber the past. But I'm not so sure any of this is all that relevant to today because the wallabies of 2015 are a culmination of all that has gone before. Looking forward to what is ahead is the only way because each world cup is different. New and advanced tactics are employed and so the game is forvever getting better in the same way swimming world records are always being usurped. Coaching, tactics and training and skill sets are continually being advanced. We have to stay one step ahead. That is the key. we need to be setingt the standard instead of catching up to it. it was interesteing that the NZ coaches were watching the Wallaby warm up. For the first time in along time we are setting the standard and others aspire to catch up. I'm sure everyone wil now be trying to come up with their own verison of 'Pooper' for example.