Mumm's the word, but only Michael Cheika knows why

Actually, Gill is. By far. Unfortunately...

I would love some insight into how he performs at training. I can only imagine he has two left feet feet, no opposable thumbs and a sulky attitude towards hard work.

Who's this Harrid fella??? Hodge must be well down the pecking order if he's below some bloke I've never heard of! ;)

A suspected, Timani doesn't make the cut

I think he was confused. I'm pretty sure the coach was John Mitchell and we all speculated that Ralph must have a wad of dirty pictures of him.

Didn't another article suggest that the reason he hasn't picked a genuine number 8 is that he is planning to eventually pick himself at number 8, to fulfil his lifelong dream?

Do you actually know the difference between 'loosing' and 'losing'?

"... a lot of people saw an unfit, overweight bloke who couldn’t do what have been the basics of lock play since the dawn of time, and waddled from ruck to ruck before flopping on and wriggling about like a tasered walrus.." Pure poetry. Thanks for that. The first thing to make me grin today.

You do realise Higgo is not allowed to play for the Wallabies. Good insightful comment.

Cheika cannot identify talent if it was standing in front of him.....Reece Hodge, case in point, only made it cos Harrid was injured !!!! As for Mumm..... What can one say???

Correct David. 10 out of 10 for your article.

Might have been the best Wallaby forward but he wasn't close to being better than Whitelock - not just for the WC but for the entire year.

'Carter was sublime in the quarters against the French,' My deceased dog would have been sublime against that disinterested French team

True, if there's one thing that's clear, international coaching is not the same as coaching a top level club side, let alone having a bit part in a coaching team. It generally takes bitter experience at the top level and learning from one's mistakes to become a great international coach. Eddie Jones and Graham Henry spring to mind immediately as examples.

Yup, Savea handed Pocock his behind in that game, he just crash ball ran into Pocock as soon as he emerged in an early phase, so that Pocock couldn't pilfer and taking him out of the game for a couple of phases. Pocock has never had the All round skillset to be called the best 7 in the World, Laurie Fisher said he would be developed to offer more in attack when he went to the Brumbies, but it never happened. McMahon is our best prospect in that position.

Honestly, there is also an argument that George Smith is the best 7 in the world at the moment :P. Maybe he's a past-it hack that just looks good compared to the club quality in the northern hemisphere, but unfortunately, he won't have the opportunity to play against the top 7s in the southern hemisphere.

Cheers chracol but obviously it's just a figure of speech. But this notion that a foreign coach with no ties to Aus rugby would do better at the selection table is nonsense. Sooner or later Australian rugby fans need to realise that the depth of talent is the problem. We can always dream that the grass will be greener with another coach, yet the same dilemmas and grievances with Cheika are identical to what people thought of Deans. These guys aren't miracle workers. They have a limited number of truly elite players in the country to work with. And must form a competitive 23 from them which we do. We punch above our weight, no doubt about that. Things are only going to get worse in the future with so few exceptional youngsters coming through. Who dreams of becoming a Wallaby nowadays? Very few I'd say. Too many other sports with genuine pathways from a young age competing.

Taylorman, I'm not saying that Carter didn't deserve it. He was fantastic in the big matches, and it is hard to compare forwards to backs anyway. The point I was trying to make was that Pocock was by far the best forward during the RWC, and possibly the best player overall. Additionally, can Carter be said to have been the best when was so average in the earlier rounds? What is the criteria, most consistently the best over all/the majority of matches, or best in the big matches? I am not saying that Carter didn't deserve it, but neither would I think it unfair had it been awarded to Pocock. I'm sorry, but Pocock's 'pilfering' (as much as I hate the word) and his ability make tackles was one of the main reasons we dominated England, survived in defence against Wales, were able to beat Argentina and were (vaguely) in it against New Zealand. He was by far Australia's most influential player. Even though he played with 8 on his back he was clearly playing a 7 (what is the criteria, exactly?).

Out of a total of 14 tests Caleb Ralph played 13 of them in 2002-2003. John Hart retired in 1999 as ABs coach. So your comment is rubbish and probably defamatory.