Michael Cheika: A man with a plan

Gold Jumper fans should take heed of the approach taken by Ange Postecoglou - the Socceroo Head Coach - who also experimented with his combinations in the build up games prior to the winning the Asian Cup. When the Socceroos went to Brazil in 2014 for the World Cup he reiterated that ithe matches were preparation and experience for the team in preparation for the end game - winning the 2015 Asian Cup on Aussie soil, which he successfully achieved. Postecoglou recently supported Cheika;'s coaching and selection approach in the ABC Offsiders programme a few weeks ago for these reasons. Ange mentioned that Chek needs to experiment with his combinations in the the lead up to the RWC so that he knows which is the best combination to use at crunch time later in the year which is in a 6 week tournament which is so different to Home and away Test matches. So lets give Cheika (and his very able assistants eg Larkham) his due............it can't go worse for Aussie than it did in RWC07 or RWC11 applying predictable coaching methods and selections where the Aussies were patently boring to watch and didn't come close to "bringing back Bill".

This is the difference between the All Blacks and other teams. The All Black selectors regularly pick players for their talent and nurture them to become the players they know they can be. Kieran Read is a classic example of this, once a smallish blindside flanker with evident talent, but developed into an outstanding No 8. Isaia Toeava is another. It doesn't always work, and there have been numerous one test All Blacks, but if you look at SA fly halves about four years ago, their raw talent was unbelievable and NZ were in trouble when Carter went down. But the international development that went into Barrett and Cruden meant that SA were left behind as they fluffed around with Lambie, Goosen, Jantjes, dropping them, playing them out of position etc without ever persevering with them and developing them into the international players they could have been. Lambie is only now starting to show the game control he could have been showing two years ago if he had been properly nurtured. Higginbotham is a player who should have been developed at the national level to be the player you build a team around. Curb some of his less useful tendencies and focus him properly and he could have been another Read. With Pocock at 7 and Hooper at 6 (his natural game suits 6 more than 7) this could have become the world beating loose trio that could have led Australia back to the glory days. unfortunately for Australian rugby, I think the chance is now lost.

"How can it be expected that two hookers stand up through that program ?" Pretty simple really, they are full time professional atheletes who have been in training for years. One starts (usually Moore) the other one does 15 mins or so at the end. In the event of big injury in a game, Hanson flys in from Ireland, or wherever the 6 or 10 man train-on group is. In the event of a smaller or late injury, Toby Smith wears 16, and the starter plays the whole game. Smith can pack a scrum in the middle if he needs to, and I'd bet James Slipper can as well. I know its a bit old fashioned for players to actually play for 80 minutes, but 7 of them actually do it every game.

You guys fell right in the sar-chasm there. Obviously there is a 5/6 style player in the French backrow who can fill in handily - which was my point. In the Wobs, the 5th prop is the 'emergency' reserve hooker, can fill in handily for a few minutes if needed, and, there is no safety issue. Packing at hooker is similar to TH prop, but easier. Moa, I have no idea where you got the notion that Hooper is going to play hooker, but I'll file it in the X files under hyperbole, along with your "suicidal" comment. As to the Great Global Rugby fratenerinty ("GGR"?), I'm looking forward to your post about all the positives in the Wallaby team selection.

Sluggy: Front row replacements are toatally different to lock replacements for one key reason: safety. Any player can ad lib in the 2nd row but you need specialist experience to compete up front without getting badly hurt. That should be obvious. We saw John Smit play prop fairly unsectacularly a few seasons ago.But having someone like Hooper packing down at #2 would be downright wrong. I'm not even going to bother to address the xenophobia of your last sentence.I thought we were all part of the great,global rugby fraternity?

Living in England I always see lots of posts added already - and lot of good ones here. What I can't accept is 2 hookers. Just one injury we are under gun . They will both have to play all four pool matches with no other cover. and then each of knockouts if we make it. After first two matches which are only four days apart - wed then Sunday , we have eng only 6 days later and Wales one more week Whatever happens v Eng we almost certainly will need to beat Wales in the last . How can it be expected that two hookers stand up through that program . So to me this is not selection opinion . There is an unacceptable and unnecessary high risk strategy here. Why ? If Moore or TPN have a recoverable injury before Eng or Wales , we will need to declare them on plane home to get our third specialist to give us chance to get to knockouts - and we would then have lost for the tournament our first/second choice hooker. I say this is madness . And this scenario has a relevant % likelihood. On other hand , having been quite judicious in multi cover at 9/10/12/15 he has picked all of Horne, Mitchell, Tomane, Speight, with AAC also in the bag and playing wing last 4 tests . What on earth is this about . ? There is no comparison with Hooker risk. Include Beale and Cooper with AAC and we are not exactly short of wing cover whoever your starting 2 are . So I ask again what is this about ? All other positions are arguable on opinion - With Douglass game time a mystery as big as not including Smith in train on group. Cheiks already said he had a role for smith in mind - so what can it be?

There's no tournament rules about being required to field a set number of specialist locks in each and every match.

Don't you?

So many articles written about this guy. He's no different from Deans or McKenzie but you all want him to be MacQueen.

True Sheek. I don't think anyone contends that Cheika is the first coach to invent professional preference in rugby team selections. But some favour is more gratuitous than others. And those of us who have lived through the various train wrecks of Rugby Past reserve the right to comment on familiar greenshoots of discontent in Rugby Present. Just as Michael Cheika exercises the right to not give a flying rats @ what any of us backseat driving, hindsight certified, keyboard-toting six sigma black belts think. Ultimately, the entire Australian rugby fraternity wants the same thing: rugby glory before the next Christmas Future.

As Peter K said. The team in Auckland tried several different combinations and players from the one the week before. It was not the 1st XV, not with Pocock on the bench.

Now that the French squad is out, and they only have three locks, I guess you can speculate about two of them bing injured as well. The 2 - hooker thing is fine. Stop panicking. And Moa, calling it 'suicidal, is over the top. I never ceases to amaze me that Kiwi posters have such a deep interest in coming on the ROAR and criticising the Wallabies, the squad, and their coach. You guys feeling a bit anxious?

He did gift them a win too don't forget...

To be fair, the Landers also beat teams full of ABs, Phil.... I think we can all conclude the RC was a bit of a mad rush to try combos out one last time before the RWC, though I still don't understand Horwills omission...

By your own argument Cooper shouldn't have gained selection for the WC... His performance in Auckland was a complete failure...

"The team/squad selections were made months ago when Cheika, Steve Larkham and Co. sat in a room and tried to plan how to win the World Cup, not the Bledisloe or the RC." Scary!

A long range penalty under huge pressure .when that kick went over i thought wallabies will win .didnt realise abs bad tacklers as you state. he took what was offered and you still have to be in right spot at right time As i stated genia is a has been.. cooper cant be trusted to do right thing ..this aint tiddy winks you have to have a certain pattern to play cooper will throw ball over his head be intercepted try other end millenuim statuim and twickers go mad Oh yeah theyll love him over there haha Mate this team will be eliminated in group play i might even go check the odds

Thanks PK. I wouldn't want to test rookies at a World Cup either. Which is why I was hoping the RC and Bledisloe might have changed their test status. Australia also won the 2011 Tri-Nations. Great achievement. But Ireland didn't care. I don't subscribe to the dual opensides in the run on at all. But if I did: Pocock is a better 7 than Hooper and GS is a better 8 than Pocock. Of course, we'll never know the effectiveness of Smith either in the run on or from the pine. Despite Smith's eye-watering form, that comparison was never displayed. And that my the point. As the author suggests, it appears Cheika's mind was set before the race was run and inconvenient comparisons were not given air time. This Wallabies side does not lack wide running, cover tackling workhorses. It lacks hard shouldered, set piece skilled, body shifting, maul capable, up-the-guts bruisers. None of this says: Michael Hooper. It sure as hell doesn't say Hooper at 8. I had hoped Palu might recapture old form - he didn't. Vaea wasn't tested. McCalman, Higginbotham had limited visibility due to the Hooper / Pocock folly. I can see why the general consensus is as it is. There's no justification for Douglas beyond Cheika's preference. But - as many wild point out - I don't know what I don't know: Douglas might be the best out-of-form, recently injured training paddock player in world rugby. I hope so.

White kicked a long range penalty and stepped through a poor tackle attempt for a try and suddenly he's our saviour. There's some awfully poor rugby judgement around here.

I'm sure most of you guys realise that selection oddities have existed since the dawn of time. Before sport came along, some kings were known to give favour to others than their own lineage. Although most deferred to their own to a fault. Even a person who considers themselves as unbaised as they come is hostage to his belief system, of what type of player or personality suits a particular position. Cheika is merely demonstrating the same human foibles as McKenzie, Deans, Connolly, Eddie Jones, MacQueen, Smith, Dwyer, Alan Jones, etc. With respect to Alan Jones, while he had some severe limitations as a mentor/coach, he was an outstanding selector, often choosing the right player for the right position for the right reason. That's not an easy thing to do consistently well. I think Spiro Zavos summed it up well when he observed that while Cheika had done an outstanding job as coach, he has left himself open to potential disaster with some of his world cup selections, or non-selections. And prior to this, tinkering too much with his XV for the Eden Park test. Selection is a tricky business & an imprecise science, otherwise we'd all be experts at it. A lot of Roarers compare super rugby & test rugby form, but they are not the same. One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. There are guys who can be outstanding at super rugby who don't handle the step-up to test rugby. Conversely, there are guys who are known to perform at test level who might not get aroused sufficiently to show their brilliance consistently at super rugby level. One thing I do find odd about modern sport, is "training form". I always thought the ultimate standard was how you performed in a game, not on the training paddock. But I guess I'm old fashioned. Ultimately everyone has their own 'system'. But Cheika is the man in the hot seat now & he is doing it his way, & for the rest of us, it's tough titties if we don't like it.