We are in the nitpicking stage. During this fallow period between the end of the Rugby Championship and start of the World Cup we are reduced to pulling on loose threads and pondering.
So let me pick a few nits and tell me if you agree.
The Wallabies’ Rugby World Cup squad isn’t that bad
The Australian rugby world kicked into a bit of frenzy last weekend when Michael Cheika finally unveiled the roster of players he’d take to England to try and bring back Bill.
I was part of that scrum of instant reaction on Twitter.
Ultimately, however, Nic White and James Horwill are the only two players who have much of a grievance.
Horwill because he put in almost two full great game performances across three matches and was a starting second row when we beat the All Blacks in Sydney for the first time in ages.
However, throughout this Super Rugby season it appeared as if Horwill didn’t have much left to give – I have a distinct memory of him laying in the grass after missing a very easy tackle against the Crusaders for a try. And no, that wasn’t me getting mixed up with Dan Carter skinning him in the Eden Park Test, despite the similarity in circumstance.
Cheika obviously went with the larger run of performances over the season than a short turn around. I’d have included him, but there were strong reasons not to.
White may feel aggrieved after being a hot rod off the bench against the All Blacks in the first Bledisloe match and decent in the second one, but he is merely a victim of Cheika’s decision to only bring two halfbacks. He has clearly been Cheika’s third choice for a long time and has duly been included in the training squad of 10, along with Horwill.
There’s a clear logic to the decisions even if you don’t agree with them. But say Cheika did include Horwill and White in the squad, at the expense of, say, Kane Douglas and Joe Tomane, would you feel significantly more confident about winning the World Cup? I didn’t think so.
It’s interesting how we fixate on particulars occasionally, as we all did here.
I personally felt sorry for Horwill. Seeing a warrior of Australian rugby in a final World Cup squad four years after he was unexpectedly named captain would have been fantastic. But omitting him is not an unarguable case.
Not bringing a third hooker is the weakest part of the squad
What hasn’t received as much coverage as Quade Cooper making the cut, our French foreign legion receiving tickets, or the exclusion of world-class game-changers like Horwill and White, is the fact that only two hookers were selected.
Will Genia’s injury history is a worry at halfback, but Nick Phipps is a fairly sturdy unit and at a last ditch Matt Giteau probably passes as well as Phipps at halfback if needed. I’m not too worried about only having two specialist No.9s in the squad.
Where I am worried is at hooker. Stephen Moore is an incredibly important player, but will probably be benched in each of the games against the lesser pool teams, at least. This gives ample time on the pitch to Tatafu Polota-Nau, not to mention time training (given Cheika’s fixation on having two full teams to use I’m guessing they’ll spend the entire four weeks in game-situation training).
What are the chances of Polota-Nau lasting six weeks? Not good. I love the bloke but there’s a track record there.
Can the Wallabies name a team without a hooker on the bench if they have to for a random pool? Will they have to call someone up and rush them, jet-lagged and all, to the sideline without having trained with the squad? How much rest will Moore get throughout the tournament leading into the big matches?
These are the questions that worry me most about the squad Cheika selected.
More support for the National Rugby Championship from the ARU and Waratahs please
I lied a little bit in my lead, writers are occasionally allowed to do that to make a point I’ve heard. We aren’t in a completely fallow period right now; we have the NRC to follow through its second season.
The first round was a good start, with all teams except one scoring four tries. Five of the eight teams passed 30 points in their first outing. Some good young players are being noticed as well.
The NRC is a good idea, but it needs more support. People aren’t aware of it yet, and the ARU and Waratahs/NSW Rugby could certainly do a better job of helping #growthegame in Sydney.
Look at the Wallabies’ and @Waratahs’ Twitter accounts. It’s only one metric to go by, and I’m sure there’s a little work going on behind the scenes, but in terms of effort required it doesn’t take much to be active on Twitter.
The Waratahs’ Twitter account retweeted seven tweets about the NRC between the first game last Thursday and when I checked on Tuesday night. They posted one GIF of their own in the lead-up.
No live scores. No results across the weekend. The Rugby Union Players Association received about as much action as the NRC.
Across the same period on the Wallabies’ account they retweeted five NRC tweets. They don’t appear to have posted anything of their own about it.
I know they’re building to the World Cup, but the NRC is the future of rugby in Australia – literally, because of the young players coming through, and financially, due to the extra games available for consumption.
There is a decent new NRC ad on television at the moment, for those who have the channels to see it, but not doing simple things like flooding all the available social media accounts with competition information during the first weekend is a shame.
The Wallabies’ Twitter feed has almost 150,000 followers and the Waratahs almost 35,000. There’s a strong chance more people will see a tweet from those accounts than will be watching an advert on Fox Sports at any given time. It’s a waste of available reach to leave the NRC off rugby’s major feeds.
Hayne is hitting his straps at just the right time for the Wallabies
Let’s end on a more exciting and enterprising note. The ARU should be thanking their lucky stars for Jarryd Hayne right now. His exploits during the pre-season in the San Francisco 49ers jersey is switching American attention to ‘rugby’.
I put air quotes around rugby because of the 320 million people in the USA, only about two million are able to tell the difference between rugby league and rugby union.
Hayne is over there doing crazy things like catching punts over his shoulder (shock!) and running it back better than his teammates do (legitimately great), and opening the minds of 320 million Americans to whichever rugby they might be thinking he is from.
That being the case, with the Wallabies playing the USA Eagles at Soldier Field, Chicago – home of the NFL’s Bears – Hayne is absolutely blitzing the field in terms of ARU’s advertising budget over there.
The Wallabies staff should be smart about media appearances and do their best to tie the talents of Israel Folau at fullback to Hayne – also a fullback and essentially a modified version of that position when returning punts – to maximise the interest over there.
Quick thought: are there any Wallabies who would be able to make the switch to the NFL as Hayne has?
Nup.
Consider your nits unpicked.
Peter Cox
Guest
"Quick thought: are there any Wallabies who would be able to make the switch to the NFL as Hayne has? Nup" FWIW, I disagree. Have you heard of Israel Folau, for a starter?
Mike
Guest
I have only just seen this post. It is full of errors. "The problem with your assertion that Cheika ignores the scrum..." I didn't write that he 'ignores' it. I wrote that he 'neglects' it - there is a difference. "...he learnt from his mistake. He got Ledesma on board." He certainly could not deny that there was a problem, after our scrum was repeatedly toweled up on EOYT 2014. But Ledesma can only do so much - he has to work with what Cheika gives him. "The wallabies scrum is better than it has been since the new laws have been applied." Yet another unsupported assertion. The objective performance of our scrum in the last four test matches makes a mockery of your assertion. All that you can say from that is that we have performed well against the second string scrummagers of Boks and Argentina, and against the ABs pack in a match where they were poor (by their standards) at everything. If you ignore how we performed against the first string Boks and Pumas, and against the ABs pack in the second Bled, then sure you can decide we are improved. "You are very much in the minority thinking Robinson would be better." Ahhh, trying to silence people you disagree with on a 'majority rules' basis. Highly intellectual approach, Peter. "He was poor in super rugby, has been poor in intl rugby for a while." An ignorant comment. The results in Super Rugby say otherwise, and the 2014 EOYT results clearly say otherwise at test level. I have pointed this out to you in detail on several threads, and your silence is deafening. Run, rabbit run. Same for the rest of your assertions, . "Previous intl scrums Robinson comes on off the bench to replace slipper and it goes backwards." No, the opposite is the case. But you have to actually watch the tests to be aware of this. The last tests in which Robinson and Slipper both played were those against Ireland, France and England on EOYT 2014. In each of those tests the Wallabies scrum was hammered when Robinson wasn't on the field, in terms of penalties and going backwards repeatedly. Conversely, when Robinson was on the field, there were no such problems. Only one penalty was awarded when BR was at LHP, and every commentator blames Hanson for that collapse. The most glaring failing with Slipper at LHP was when England scored two tries off the back of dominant scrums against us. However, Wales was also significant - Robinson didn't play in that match, but Slipper did, when Wales had five consecutive scrum resets leading to a penalty try. If one ignores what actually happened on the field in tests, then PeterK's assertions make perfect sense!
PeterK
Roar Guru
Mike - The problem with your assertion that Cheika ignores the scrum is he learnt from his mistake. He got Ledesma on board. The wallabies scrum is better than it has been since the new laws have been applied. The common acclaim is that Cheika is correct in his choice of top 4 props. You are very much in the minority thinking Robinson would be better. He was poor in super rugby, has been poor in intl rugby for a while. The results say otherwise. On other threads you say refs respect Robinson, yet despite being asked multipl times you have never shown any evidence of that. There is no evidence whatsoever that Robinson would be a better prop let alone that this was a gross error of judgement. Previous intl scrums Robinson comes on off the bench to replace slipper and it goes backwards. Sio comes on and its fine, or starts against AB's and its fine.
Mike
Guest
"Seriously though the 2 Bens were the most experienced props and not selecting either was a big call. It was a correct call." Failure to select Robinson in this squad was a gross error of judgment, arising from Cheika's ingrained belief that he can neglect the scrum and get away with it. Cheika has a lot of positive attributes, but this, together with his inflexibility, is a major achilles heel. On a hard pitch in the right conditions, he can often get away with it. The Wallabies suffered for this in the last EOYT when our scrum performed badly when Robinson was not on the field, suffering numerous penalties as well as backpedalling. Cheika has now compounded the error by placing heavy reliance on the injured Slipper, and picking two very inexperienced looseheads behind him. And this in an RWC in the northern hemisphere. Not smart at all.
Mike
Guest
I don't think we disagree on the Pocock point, PR. When I wrote that moving him to 8 was a masterstroke, I meant that I would have kept him there (if it were up to me, which it isn't!)
piru
Guest
Wallabies in the NFL? Only one I can think of is David Pocock, I could see him at defensive tackle or middle linebacker in the vein of a Clay Matthews
Happy Jack
Guest
Hayne reminds me of easts RL player Mark Harris hype in the 60's when he was going to smash the NFL. His times etc were all "extraordinary" before the internet until a local yank pointed out they were very ordinary. He ended up trying out as a punter in the Canadian football league. Hayne has more going for him than Harris but its still tough. Telstra is underrepresented in western Sydney compared to other parts of Australia therefore is funding a doco on him to attract punters for Telstra TV. Meanwhile RU player Colin Scotts plays a couple of years in the NFL without the hype...
Upfromdown
Guest
I am starting to think that as well. Some reports have Hayne as playing a different type of role to other players in his position/s. If previous players haven't tried to step and fend previously or it t hasn't been done well then that says a lot about the coaching and development of it's players .
Kenny
Guest
Lol
Kenny
Guest
Lol. Aru? Haynes making his own way over there. These clowns think their wallabies are superstars. Lol
Red Rag
Roar Rookie
This Wallatahs squad is complete rubbish. Some of the world's best players (Horwill, Hansen, JOC) were left at home for galahs (which is a pink Warratah). More of the world's best players (Slipper, Genia, Quade) will be on the bench or in the stands while Cheika re-forms his starting team that fluked a Super Rugby win. It's a travesty and a stitch-up. All this talk about 'finishers' is cover for Cheika picking his favourites. Cheika out. It's not too late if we act now. If Link can be thrown off the plane by the Warratah cohort that rules rugby in this country, then Cheika can in turn be thrown off the plane by the people. The anger is there. We have to focus it. Cheika out!
qwad
Guest
Bang on. I'd be stoked with that squad and there would be no real complaints I reckon. When you compare the reaction to cheika's teams against SA, Arg and NZ against the second NZ team and the WC squad I think you see that Aus rugby fans are pretty sensible and willing to go along with decisions that make sense. There are a few who always kick up a stink but the majority were happy with those 3 teams first up. I honestly would have preferred a majority roar picked WC squad which would have looked a lot like yours i reckon.
Shane D
Roar Rookie
Played with the Bulldogs under 20 team but decided he wanted to move back to NZ in 2011.
Jimmmy
Guest
You are spot on John. There is no one like Hayne. He is a true broken play master. Billy slater was an even better broken play runner but lacks the physical presence . Folau is just not in that class.
sheek
Roar Guru
Hi Tigranes, No, I can't say I recall this Greg Smith. Yeah, Hayne is instinctive, which at the moment is in his favour. I hope he gets away with it! Apparently Moore got a badly cut eyebrow, or some kind of facial injury. I think it unnerved him a bit & he decided rugby league wasn't for him.
apelu
Guest
Yep, it is not a bad squad; it's a terrible squad.
mtiger
Roar Rookie
A bit difficult for him to transit to a superb 7s player
Shineblocker
Guest
Hayne came 3rd behind John Grant and Winner Lachie Turner. The times were, Turner 11.10, Grant 11.15 and Hayne 11.20 in a 7 man field ...
nerval
Guest
It's only recently that I learned that Milner-Skudder was with one of the NRL teams for a couple of years. Maybe the Bulldogs? Either way, does anyone know what happened there?
nerval
Guest
They're sure he's an Aussie - they're just not sure the difference between the NZ and Aussie flag. Our friend "Fitzy" has already had that brought to his attention.