Lest we forget.
This time of the year is always a poignant time for Australians and New Zealanders with the memory of Anzac Day and the history, national and familial, that the intrepid attacks on the Gallipoli beachheads invokes.
Before the Super Rugby matches involving Australian and New Zealand teams locally over the weekend, there was the moving spectacle of the Ode of Remembrance being recited and the Last Post resounding around the deathly quiet stadiums, the crowds still silent as the plangent last broken note faded into an oblivion of sound.
At Dunedin, before the bruising Highlanders 14-15 Sharks match, the Ode was recited in Maori before the more familiar English original. And the official match ball carrier was 93 year-old World War II veteran Lance Corporal Duncan Alexander Peat.
I am a great believer that an essential element in any existing institution is a memory and the honouring of the past. Modern rugby must always honour the fact that many of the men involved in the Gallipoli expedition, the subsequent fighting on all the other fronts and in every theatre of the Word War II (like Lance Corporal Peat) were rugby men to their heart and bones.
Brett McKay in several articles on The Roar recently has made the point that the Super Rugby schedule for 2016, unlike previous years, paid scant respect to the Anzac tradition. There was only one Australia-New Zealand contest, the Brumbies-Crusaders match, where in the past we have had up to three such games.
The finger of suspicion at this neglect of what should be a tradition has been pointed at the Canadian firm that was contracted to provide the schedule. The point here is that the Canadians might not have realised the importance of Anzac Day in the sensibilities of Australians and New Zealanders.
It could be, too, that the complications of creating a schedule involving matches in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Japan and Singapore proved too daunting to include a specific Anzac Day component.
Among my many objections to the uncaring attitude shown to matters of concern from the rugby public in Australia and New Zealand by SANZAAR is the fact that issues likes this are never even acknowledged, let alone explained with any convincing answers.
So what should happen now is that SANZAAR starts to be mindful of the concerns of rugby supporters out of South Africa and begin to engage with all of us. SANZAAR could start with the promise that the Anzac Day round in 2017 will be treated as something very special for Australian and New Zealand rugby supporters.
SANZAAR needs to be aware that there is a growing backlash, especially in New Zealand, against it based on the grounds, apparently, that the chief executive Andy Marinos works in South Africa and that there seems to have been an extremely kind schedule created for the Stormers.
The punch line here is that Marinos played for the Stormers.
Now back to Anzac Day, World War I and its rugby implications.
The NSWRU in its annual report in 1919 paid tribute to the 384 players and officials who were killed in action.
To celebrate the return to normality at the end of World War I a great rugby tournament was played in England. The King’s Cup featured teams from England (mainly officers), Australia (only a handful of officers), Canada and New Zealand.
The AIF team won a brutal match against the New Zealanders, 6-5. But the tournament was won by the New Zealanders.
That AIF team was then asked to tour Australia to revive the rugby game there. So many club players volunteered for overseas service that club rugby in NSW and Queensland was put on hold. Rugby needed a special series of spectacles to regain even a small part of the ground gained by league which continued its club competitions during the War.
That spectacle came with the brilliant, all-running, highly physical game played by the AIF team.
A measure of how good this team was can be gained from the fact that on its way back to Australia the AIF team played Natal and defeated that strong side 34-3.
In Australia the AIF team played eight matches and won them all. The old men of the AIF beat a younger team representing Australia in two Tests, in Brisbane 20-13 and then in Sydney 22-6.
One of the great men of Australian rugby Peter Crittle invariably makes the point that the AIF team created what became for a time and should be now the model for how Australian rugby teams should play.
The AIF players were made physically and mentally tough through their war experience. As a consequence, they played their rugby for the pure enjoyment of the running game.
Kicking was not allowed, even from deep defensive positions near their try line. Attack became their best form of defence.
This AIF running rugby model was adopted, with some slight modifications, by the wonderful 1920 Wallabies, the 1921 Wallabies (who defeated the All Blacks), the 1928-29 Wallabies on their tour of Europe and the 1931 Wallabies who won Australia’s first Test series against the All Blacks.
In the mud of the SCG in 1937, a NSW team playing the AIF running game in the mud and the rain defeated the touring Springboks side. Evan Whitton, the great rugby writer, reckoned (admittedly before the Rugby World Cup 1999 triumph) that this victory was Australia’s greatest day in rugby.
Those 1937 Springboks, anyway, went on to win the first Test series the All Blacks lost in New Zealand and gained the reputation from impressed New Zealanders of being “the best team ever to leave New Zealand.”
In the 1980s the torch of AIF running rugby was held aloft by a series of great Randwick ‘Galloping Greens’ sides with champions like David Campese, the Ella brothers, Lloyd Walker, and Simon Poidevin leading the stampede.
Bob Dwyer made the point recently when arguing for greater ARU funding for the clubs that make up the Sydney and Brisbane competitions that four of the last eight Wallabies coaches (Bob Dwyer, Eddie Jones, Ewen McKenzie, Michael Cheika) have been from the Randwick club.
This is a tribute to the rugby nous generated by the Randwick Galloping Greens in their glory days when even the All Blacks found the club side difficult to defeat.
The current argument between Eddie Jones and Daryl Gibson over what the current Waratahs coach is trying to do in changing the style of the Waratahs from the Cheika method fits into this AIF running rugby history.
Gibson is the good guy in this argument and Jones the baddie.
Gibson provoke the wrath of Jones when he made the argument that “here in NSW we’re wanting to investigate to make sure our pathways and our kids coming through are taught the skills that we think are necessary to play running rugby.”
And why does Gibson think this sort of investigation of the lack of skills necessary to play running rugby is needed?
“It’s a structural thing. The difficulty for us is, I think, the Eddie Jones era of playing A,B,C-certain type of rugby. The lack of decision making has had an effect on Australian rugby in the fact that it’s very pervasive in the schooling system. And then so we tend to get our boys at 18 and probably their skills are very good but just missing that decision-making skill in the open environment.”
Last week Jones virtually conceded the truth of Gibson’s argument (and shot down his own arguments) when he told British rugby writers that rugby has to become reactive: “It is no longer an obsession with formation … It is no longer the shape you play, but how you move in relation to the speed of the ball and what the defence is doing.
“That is the way rugby is going … It is highly instinctive, multi-phase, ball-moving, continuous rugby.”
You could not get a more explicit and devastating attack on the uselessness of the Jones robot-rugby method. And, irony of ironies, it has come from Jones the Coach himself.
We saw just how thrilling and match-winning this AIF running rugby model can be in the brilliant, exciting, body-shattering Hurricanes-Chiefs match when from the kick-off for the second half the teams passed the ball 45 times! They kept the ball in play for over four minutes (is this a record sequence?) with turnovers and kicks from one side to the other before the Chiefs finally scored.
The great captain of the AIF team William Watson (who won a DSO in World War II and fought on the Kokoda Trail) would have been thrilled with this spectacle of running rugby.
He would have been thrilled, too, with the new Waratahs and their splendid 49-13 demolition, playing AIF running rugby, of their bogey team the Western Force.
I called the Waratahs the ‘new Waratahs’ because Gibson has brought in six new (from 2015) starters, Tom Robertson, Hugh Roach, Jack Dempsey, Jed Holloway, Andrew Kellaway, and Reece Robinson.
The experiment of starting Israel Folau at centre is no longer an experiment. Folau’s experience as a league winger seems to have helped him with the intricate defensive decisions a centre needs to make. He needs no experience to unleash his instinctive attacking game.
The new Waratahs created their highest score ever against the Force. They looked like a team ready to storm back into contention for the Super Rugby title.
This last aspiration needs to be tested by stronger teams than the Force, however. The tour to South Africa with the Stormers at Capetown applying the acid on the Waratahs will be an instant test of Gibson’s revival of his embattled side.
One last point needs to be made. Michael Cheika left Gibson a poisoned chalice with a Waratahs run-on squad that had no growth in it. Too many players well past their best were kept in the Cheika Waratahs.
Gibson has revived the side with his infusion of young talent, players who have a real intent to play the running game.
Question of the day: Has Michael Cheika got the rugby balls to do the Gibson thing with his 2016 Wallabies?
Mick Harrold
Roar Rookie
I share your frustration with the media. Last week everyone was saying the Tahs were not looking good. This week they are title contenders. A bit fanciful if you ask me. For my mind, they have looked poor all season despite all the talent on offer. I think "Zero Gain" was trying to say that no-one is saying Gibson is good even after the win. I have heard in the media that "The Tahs are back", but nothing much positive about Gibson. In fact, I think even the wind blown up the Tahs bums after last weekend is just that, wind. The media need something to focus on and smashing the bottom of the ladder is just what they needed. But everyone knows it is over this year for them and has moved on to next year. The only thing the Tahs are fighting for this year is to beat the Rebels. It's embarrassing if the don't.
Mick Harrold
Roar Rookie
I don't blame Folau though. The sign of a poor coach is to take a good player and try and make him play somewhere else to field a hole in your team. The thinking goes, the team isn't going well and we are crap at 13, so lets take our top class 15 and make him play there because he is an excellent 15 so he must be good at 13. The problem with Folau over the last few seasons is that he doesn't get enough good ball. So to fix that, they take him away from his best position. It is stupid. Find another 13. And and while developing someone there, find a way to get Folau more ball. At 15! Don't throw him in the deep end and expect him to deliver. I don't see anyone thinking Ben Smith should play 13 just because he is a good 15. Jed Holloway has done well running the ball up recently. Why not put him at 13. Or how about Hooper. He's probably more suited to the position. But all of that would be dumb.
Mick Harrold
Roar Rookie
As for your final question. Do the Gibson thing. What, take a team of top athletes and turn them into losers. I could do that without trying! Cheika left him a poisoned chalice. Seriously! Cheika left him a top 2 side with belief in itself. A couple of players left the Tahs. Woo freaking hoo. The Crusaders lost some of the greatest rugby players ever to play the game and guess what. They are still spanking other teams. The Tahs lost a few very good players, but so what. (I am not a Kiwi). What the Tahs lost was a good coach. The Tahs are poorly coached. Stop making excuses. The Tahs are in a rebuilding phase right now. By that, I mean that they are waiting for the next good coach to come along and turn them into something decent. History suggests it will take a while.... Maybe 10 more years at the current historical rate. And the more you write about it being anything different, the more people will gloss over the facts staring them in the eyes. The Rebels are a better team than the Tahs right now on merit. Their players aren't better, but the team is. Deny it all you like, but it is a fact. Need I say more. The Rebels shouldn't even be close. The Tahs could win the flag with their talent and the Rebels are no hope. But the Rebels top the Aus comp right now. The Tahs and especially the Brumbies and probably the Reds have much better players across the park, but...... the Rebels top the Aus comp right now. Seriously. The Rebels! The 5 point byes top the comp in Aus. Pffft. I am flabbergasted and I am a Rebels fan. However, you are right about the Anzac test matches!
zhenry
Guest
What disturbs me about ANZAC DAY is just remembering the dead of that battle, I know the dead from other wars are often included but my point is it should be officially remembered as such. Remembering our dead in war definitely has its place but so does; why the war was fought at all, who ordered such a suicidal operation, why did the NZ top military (for example) ratify the ANZAC British order. Such mindless remembrance tends to also reinforce political power and the state of nation hood present in NZ and AU. In NZ there was mindless allegiance to do what the 'Mother country wanted whether it was in NZ's interest or not, this mindless allegiance continues to the present day, accept now mostly transferred to a corporate dominated USA. The history of ANZAC is easy enough researched on the internet. Some have suggested Churchill gave the order after one of his 'previous night' champagne binges: Whether that is true or not the order and chain of command associated with ANZAC is a travesty of military incompetence, criminal in its magnitude. A country like NZ needs to take responsibility for the appalling decision by their politicians and top military commanders, they should never have agreed to such a suicidal mission. And thats what ANZAC should also be about. There is a whole list of questions that can be asked: How come NZ and AU set aside a day of remembrance for such an ignominious loss, the US and the Romans target/ed their victories. The concept of ANZAC itself, is it still valid? I spent my working life in Australia and ANZAC day was remembered with hardly a mention (or not at all) of NZ. At present Te Papa in Wellington has an exhibition of ANZAC advertising it as 'our war'? The world is having one war after another, its hard to keep up with them all: Are there some things we can do to stop such mindless killing, of not just young soldiers but of civilians, mostly women and children - they take the brunt of the war dead? Has our financial system got anything to do with it? How can we even formulate intelligent questions when we get our information mostly via advertising. It is neither accurate, reasonably complete or uncontrived. How responsible for this carnage, for example, are media owners? OK, you make up your own
Lorry
Guest
Anzac Day has become a cult... It is a travesty that we don't recognise Aboriginal defence of their land during colonisation. What has been done with the site at Kurnell (incorporating indigenous themes/information) shows how it can be done.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Personally I think he has a lot to answer for regarding the poor form of wallaby outside backs and inability for the 10/12 to set up players outside of them during the RWC. People want to believe Bernie is a great attacking coach due to his playing career. I'm yet to see a lot of evidence to suggest that. Last year he had a great deal of attacking power at his disposal at the brumbies. Their weapon of choice? The maul.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Come on Tman. Talking of Nadolo like that ignores the fact he bounced around teams for about 8 years before fulfilling his potential. He even admitted himself he failed to apply himself earlier in his career.
taylorman
Roar Guru
Well then, easy to see why Nadolo was let go...if you can't trust your talent...
Fox
Guest
Absolutely he does TWAS
Fox
Guest
"Question of the day: Has Michael Cheika got the rugby balls to do the Gibson thing with his 2016 Wallabies?" Great question and the short answer is no.
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
Hi TWAS You may well be right - Larkham is still in his infancy as a coach after all, despite a glittering playing career....so he's still finding his way. And he was part of Eddie' ABC club back in 2001, so old habits probably die hard. It's certainly a difficult moment for the Brumbies, let's see if they can recover when Pocock comes back.
Tamworth
Guest
Good story Spiro. To put the NZ into Anzac the first All BLACK captain,Dave Gallagher died on October 3rd 1917 near Ypres. Terry McLean, the legendary rugby writer rated the NZ Army Team after WW2 as the finest he saw. Many of them went on to influence several generations of rugby teams. Major Charlie Saxon and Fred Allen come to mind
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Nicholas don't you think that Larkham has to take some of the responsibility considering he was involved as an assistant under White before taking over. What skills can he say he was responsible for their development of?
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
Hi Spiro, thank you for an article which sets Rugby in the much wider context in which it has to live and breathe. In my experience nothing which pays scant regard to its past lasts for very long... so reminders such as these are essential. The Eddie Jones-Daryl Gibson debate is interesting. I personally hope Daryl Gibson is able to stay in Australian rugby for as long as he needs to effect some changes at root level. The Brumbies' recent experience also bears on this. Stephen Larkham is trying to propagate some attacking fluency in a side which lived by the kicking game and defence under Jake White, and we can see just how difficult the transition is. While they are still learning something new, the top NZ sides are picking them off big time. Those skill-sets in unstructured attacking situations are becoming the most precious commodity on the rugby market - look how Wasps have benefited from the presence of Charles Piutau this term!
Harry Jones
Expert
Great article, Spiro, but it was marred by a cheap shot that is beneath you. Andy Marinos is possibly the least corruptible man in SANZAAR. He played a few games for Western Province and the Stormers; he played more for the Sharks. He was also capped for Wales, and played a lot of League. The Stormers have had brutal travel schedules in years past; this year, they have one of the easier ones, but part of the 'easy' feature is that playing a near test side in Buenos Aires isn't as difficult this year as we all expected. I'm sure there'll be some ebb and flow. Andy didn't create anything untoward here.
sheek
Roar Guru
Since Spiro's banner headline suggested his article was about the 1919 AIF team, here is some info taken from Max Howell's book: "They Came To Conquer." Bear in mind, the makeup of the Wallabies changed from Europe to Australia, as some players left the team before it completed its arrangements of matches back home. In Europe the AIF played about 16 matches, winning 12. Only five of these were King's Cup matches, winning three. An unusual & remarkable member of the AIF was Jimmy Clarken, by then about 43, & a renowned hooker-prop. He played one test in 1905 & also toured North America in 1912. AIF King's Cup matches: Mother Country (UK) Lost 3-6 South African Forces Won 8-5 Royal Air Force Lost 3-7 Canada Won 38-0 New Zealand Forces Won 6-5 According to Howell the AIF & Wallabies met three times, with the AIF winning each time: 25-18 (Sydney), 20-13 (Brisbane), 22-6 (Sydney). The AIF XV for the three matches was (W after player's name denotes full Wallaby): Cliff Rankin Dudley Suttor (W) Togo Lyons 2nd/3rd Tom Stenning Dick Poutney Johnny Boswald Peter Buchanan (W) (vc) Rat Flanagan Babe See Vic Dunn (W) John Thompson (W) Roger Bradley Bill Cody (W) Bill O'Toole 2nd/3rd George Horsey Irv Ormiston (W) 3rd Johnny Bond (W) Willie Watson (W) (c) The Australian XV for the three matches was (W after player's name denotes full Wallaby): Vince Mooney Pup Raymond (W) 3rd Mac Sheppard Larry Wogan (W) Eric Francis (W) Jimmy Flynn (W) 2nd/3rd (vc) Cocky Mayne (W) Norm Mingay (W) Tat McMahon 2nd Wakka Walker (W) Leslie Gall 2nd Pat Murphy (W) Bill Cotter 1st Dick Murray 2nd Charlie Fox (W) 3rd Sam Kreutzer (W) Brian O'Sullivan 2nd/3rd JS Ives Ted Fahy (W) (c) Bob Friend 1st/2nd Charlie Thompson (W) Allan Gregg 1st/3rd Wingy Breen 2nd/3rd
Darwin Stubbie
Guest
Huh ... If you're going to have a go - at least try and be coherent
Nabley
Guest
I do see you have included South Africa. You sparked my deeper interest so I went searching and found that the RAF were included as a separate team as well. Not only that, but the winner between "the Mother Country" and NZ, had to play France three days later before the cup was presented by the King. Bit unclear if France was part of it or not..
sheek
Roar Guru
Nabley, I'm from your generation, perhaps bit younger. I understand all of what you're saying. However, none of this helps explain to me how three above average players, especially above average forwards, just disappeared off the face of the map, even allowing for the problems of rugby union in the 1920s. If they were outstanding backs, you could understand them immediately defecting to league. But they were very good forwards. Their story, or lack of, simply adds to my original post that there is too little info on the 1919 AIF team. That was my point.
Spiro Zavos
Expert
The King's Cup 1919 was played between army teams from Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.