What I hate about Australian rugby

we literally just beat the all blacks 45-26

What I love about Australian Rugby is the bloody passion. God we care. It's 200 years since we beat the Darkness. We love it when the players have a go, a real go. Like James O'Connor, like Robbie Coleman, like Nathan Gray, like George Smith. Like Kurtley Beale on Saturday. Flying onto the ball, worthy of Campese, running at full speed into the gap. The Wallabies came back at them and credit where credit is due. The Darkness never clock off. That's why they are so bloody good. A weak team would have folded. This one fought back. A hiding sure but it could have been the end of the world as we know it. But the committed fans are not happy. Poor strategy, poor decisions, short term thinking for years as the fans drifted away and results went south, literally. Solutions? Make a winning Wallabies and increasing people paying the game the focus. Pick the best players regardless of where they when playing top tier nations. A player should never doubt the jersey means the best we have. The solutions to the next level is get more fans, not to tell 10000 fans to leave. Get the Rugby community back even if this means giving up chasing new fans who don't know they love Rugby. Save the Force, whatever it takes. Join with the Brumbies for a while if we have to, till the comp evolves. Make sure the refs know who they work for and that we like the running game; keep em onside, speed up the set plays. Treat the super teams as feeder clubs so they train and play to suit the Wallabies. We are short 9s and 10s so no more foreign players in those positions - are you guys nuts? We are short big, mobile backrowers. Recruit some. Find some athletes and teach them the game. That's what Paul Roos would do. League forwards not backs. Consider some weight based junior comps so we keep juniors playing as they grow at different rates. Get the game onto free to air or stream it. Don't sell our game to Murdock. He's drained the body dry. I love the fact that we hate losing to the bloody Kiwis. They love that about us too.

If they weren't well paid they'd all be in Europe or Japan and club land would have its wish, they could field a club team against the All Blacks. That'll show 'em!!

I have been watching the Wallabies since I was a small boy in 1965. There have been some abject performances over the years -- in 1966 in Brisbane the Lions walloped a once good Wallaby team that was over the hill; the 1972 Wallabies were aptly named "the Woeful Wallabies" in NZ; the ABs won 43-6 in gale in Wellington in and the Boks put 60+ points on Greg Smith's sad troupe in 1997. But last Saturday night was one of the very worst ever performances. Had the ABs maintained their discipline, they might have put 70 or 80 points on. The only thing that can be said about the Wallabies is that they appear to be fit enough to go for 80 minutes now! But perhaps that was because they hardly tackled for the first 50 minutes. Where is John Muggleton now when we need him. Surely it's time for a new defence coach.

My recollection of the three amigos and Deans was that they were too entitled. That Deans found it hard to work within the then wallaby culture to whip them into shape. Maybe something like that came out later or was in his book. I do remember though during Deans rein he did spend a lot of time at grassroots fostering rugby. I started following the roar back then because of Deans coaching roll at WB. I agree he was an easy scapegoat. And then the player revolt to link. Why are they not revolting now? Surely there must be real bewilderment with how things are going. Bottom line is I want oz back, but I'm clueless as to who should be running things.

Average home crowd for the Western Force in 2017 was 9388.

Foff Milan. You've got no idea and no business being here.

There were considerably more than 8,000 at every game except the one the EARU scheduled at 6:00 PM on a week night in the middle of rush hour.

Average home crowd for the Western Force in 2017 was 9388. So what is your point?

8000+ you reckon??? If only that number had actually shown up for Force games - you might still have a team

GWS Giants did pretty well too, a couple of hours before bled, tremendous character, and 15k fans for a minor game.

Sure, rip up the contracts. It won't solve a thing.

I sympathise with your point, but when the attitude was there in the second half, our defence looked a lot better too. Its not like we learned something new over the break. All the technique was the same, but the mojo kicked in. Everyone was that bit more intense (as they should have been from the start). It may not have changed the result but would have prevented the humiliation.

i agree about the force, but there wasn't a right answer anyway. Without a national comp, Super rugby had become our national comp, our university for test players. And when SR demanded that one of our sides be dropped, it was always going to do terrible damage to Australian rugby whichever team was chosen. The worst deficit is not with our coach or any of the players. Sure they could do with butt-kicking but it misses the point. The worst deficit is with Australian rugby's leadership. Strategic planning over the last two decades has failed, badly. Despite having a huge pool of business talent to draw on, rugby's performance over 10 years looks amateurish compared to AFL and even NRL.

Well said Crazy Horse, just got home from the GF, great win by Wests, great to see grass roots thriving in WA

I agree. Maybe this particular humiliation will be a wake-up call. Or maybe it will just be more of the old "If only we get the right coach/flyhalf/openside/hooker/winger etc, everything will be alright" rubbish. By all means change coaches, tweak the team etc. But the problems go much deeper, and too many at all levels in rugby do not want to change.

I reckon lol

Shame the Perth public didn't bother showing up week in week out at nib. No point crying like big girls about it now

Perth is one of the best places on earth to live. Currently rated no 7. We don't want to live anywhere else. We've got everything we need including a thriving rugby union community right here. We are just trying to preserve it.

Yes, my dog, who is a Force member, was there.