If Laurie Daley's under the pump tonight, how about Australia's Super Rugby coaches?

KW The golden age of aus rugby was 14 years ago the game has changed so much since then its like chalk and cheese. I cant see them winning the bledisloe cup in the next 5 years at least

Have to say, my immediate thought on reading the headline was to wonder whether Michael Foley was relaxing in an armchair somewhere and thinking "Suffer in your jocks"... :)

Have to agree with BEN, David..where have you been hiding. Didn't you pick the Bumboys and the Tahs to win...oh dear. What about a piece on Falaou and how hopeless he is running back, his defence is flaky and he is seriously lacking in rugby nous when it comes to playing better teams. Yes, he is a great open field runner and does wonderful trys through a gap but his all round game is a far cry from where it should be, either at Centre or FB.

Finishing top spot avoids a 1/4 final clash with a NZ team. Would rather play the SA wild card team than the Hurricanes or Highlanders even if it is at home.

Agreed, it will come down to whether he can attract and get the players needed to take the Warratahs to the next level. The one problem with a foreign coach is whether he will have the mana to have players want to play for him. Coaching is so many things, for example one of the things that helped the Chiefs in the past was that I think they won the battle for players when all else might be even wanting to play for a team Coached by Rennie and Smith as it was perceived that they might make them better players and increase their worth.

I think the Lions team management consider making the final to be more important and have chosen a strategy to best implement it. Whilst I probably would have had an each way bet and rested half the team against the Kings and half against the Jaguars it is definitely a valid tactic. Even if the Lions lose they still end in second place, fitter and fresher with perhaps a better chance to progress, plus they can still host the final if the Kiwi team that claims top spot loses, which could be a possibility seeing they may play another NZ teams in the semi where home ground advantage may not be worth as much.

Concur with all Buk's comments. Thanks David!

Lordy, agree with you regarding all the Super Rugby coaches bar Daryl Gibson, they got off to an ordinary start but are now the best team in the Conference ( not saying a lot right now ) but will unfortunately miss the semi finals because of that ordinary start. Gibbo has given some youngsters a run which is great. I think he has done a pretty solid job.

Highlander - You would think that the home final would be important as well as quarters and semi but I guess that is their call, I'm certainly happy about it. ben - you would of thought that the game vs the kings last week was the time to rest players like the Highlanders did the week before that. The Lions had other opportunities to rest their players in the other Kings game and the Sunwolves. Tactically weak option IMO, but time will tell, and if they win it was the right choice.

David, I enjoy your articles, and appreciate the time you put into putting stats together etc. For example, interesting that the Rebels are the worst performed against NZ sides, given at one stage they were challenging for the top 2 australian places. I also enjoy your sometimes very opinionated comments, particularly when they greatly diverge from mine. At times you're about as PC as a bull elephant on steroids, but that makes for a refreshing change. But above all, you put up with so much stick and disrespect, and still come out every week with a new article. That takes guts and commitment. Keep on being you, David, you add something of value to the Roar, and thanks for your articles, which I enjoy reading. Also the various moves & work you did years ago in helping to bring rugby out of the amateur arena, and break the power of monopolists whose ethos was something belonging to the Dark Ages and feudal systems, rank very highly in my book. Those efforts have resulted in many players from the wrong side of the tracks having a career choice and being able to make significant contributions towards their extended families welfare, that under the amateur system would never have happened.

On the coaching front, it's the same old problem. Coaches get nervous of their career prospects so inevitably become conservative, playing not to lose rather than playing to win syndrome. And more conservative tactics leads to more losses and it spirals from there. When the going gets tough the tough don't always get going. Quite the opposite.

I heard the sth african radio commentator commenting on the lions squad on radiosport. He said that the boks in the team are extremly fatigued and last year the same trip resulted in a lot of players getting the flu and unable to train so they wanted to avoid that.

No matter the outcome they will get a home quarter and semi, maybe because they have won away against some good sides this year they re confident if need be for an away final, better rest the team now is the approach I guess - still very interesting call

Interesting Highlander,i seems like a odd choice to make considering the importance of winning to seal top spot. I can only recall final round resting to that extreme in 2 cases, the Stormers last year and the Waratahs in 2002? my memory. Both those teams couldn't rise above or below their table rankings, It ended up backfiring both times as the Tahs and Stormers both lost convincingly the following week on their home turf in the playoffs. It gives me some confidence that either the Chiefs or Crusades can top the table, but a strange decision to take to rest 15 Lions players. Maybe they hope to save on the travel from Argentina and back, but this could backfire big time!

Gibson is at least introducing new talent into the Tahs, needs to do a bit more of that probably. Force and Reds have already gone out looking for new coaches, Brumbies - Larkham's untouchable there which doesn't help the team, Rebels - can a different coach really change anything there? How much of it is the coach's game plan? I don't understand why highly experienced players can't change the game plan on the field when clearly it is not working - see the Brumbies against the Blues - at what point did they think that their limited approach was going to beat the Blues the way they were performing? Prior to the game sure, it would have sounded good but once the tries started pouring in, time for Moore to say 'let's do something different and use our Wallaby laden backline'.

40% of Australian Super Rugby coaches already sacked. Not sure how much more under the pump they can be.

have you seen the team the Lions have picked - 15 rested

After reading and following the Roar rugby side of things one can't help comparing experts and internalising their styles somewhat. I look forward to Brett and Spiro’s amazing analyses. Nicholas Bishop has taken over where Scott Allen left off by gathering amazing detailed evidence to provide some amazing insights. All these experts are countered by the standard David Lord piece which in a perverse way brings out the comic relief not least because of the disparaging comments that come with it. Invariably, the Lord piece (at least in rugby) feels derived from the most basic of press releases from what has just happened i.e last weekend’s results etc to do a rehash of information that all keen Roar followers know anyway, then plunks some kind of click-bait header followed by one sentence paragraphs pretending at brevity. And at the end a cute conclusion that pretends to be plucked from all this to provide, only Lord knows, some insight that he thinks unique. Laughable, really. But to be fair, different strokes for different folks … keep on bringing it, Lord ...

Try pickandgo.info. Can sift through all that information in about ten minutes. Alternatively just glance at the Super Rugby table and the 2016 test results. Heck maybe even the rankings. that should be enough to "conclusively prove Australian rugby is way behind New Zealand rugby in 2016"

Could have told you that without the stats. I was waiting for your article on the games over the weekend esp the tahs.