The Wallabies are battered and bruised, coach Michael Cheika has been hung out to dry by many, Rugby Australia has no friends because it hasn’t earned respect, and the last rites are being read about a code that was once known as the game they play in heaven.
Pure turmoil, nightmare status.
The rot started years ago when club rugby was allowed to go professional when it should have remained amateur, having a job Monday to Friday, paying annual club subscriptions, training Tuesday and Thursday nights, playing Saturday, having a big Saturday night, recovering Sunday, and going back to work Monday.
That didn’t happen, every club went broke, and worst of all they lost their licensed clubs – the very hub of rugby club life.
Around the same time, there were heaps of secondary schools where rugby was the only winter sport – especially GPS and Associated Schools.
Now every one of them caters for AFL and soccer.
But the current crisis can be best explained over the last six weeks.
It kick-started when Rugby Australia signed Michael Hooper to a five-year contract worth $6 million when he wasn’t the best seven in the country, nor the best captain.
Yet Rugby Australia trumpeted him as the new face of rugby.
Didn’t they learn from Quade Cooper about the danger of long contracts?
He’s been playing club rugby in Brisbane on $650,000 a season because Reds coach Brad Thorn didn’t want him on his roster, as is his right.
And how much extra pressure did the Hooper signing put on Cheika to keep the Pooper experiment operating when a change was demanded?
(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
Fast forward to last week where Rugby Australia obviously rated the Pumas clash as a non-event by scheduling the international on the Gold Coast where only 16,019 turned up, and that figure looked liberal.
Cheika added to the downgrade status by persevering with some strange selection changes, and making a few new ones despite a win over the Boks the previous week, and added to confusion with an extraordinary uncharacteristic explanation.
Kurtley Beale’s switch to fly-half and Matt Toomua’s move to inside centre were stretched into a second week in a row, and when Israel Folau returned from an ankle injury Cheika retained his replacement Dane Haylett-Petty as fullback and punted Folau to the right wing.
Cheika only has three x-factor players – David Pocock, Beale and Folau.
Pocock took over the captaincy from an injured Hooper to play seven where he’s the best, but by taking Beale and Folau out of where they are most comfortable in proven positions to x-factor, Cheika publicly dared them to fire in unfamiliar positions.
Cheika’s dare to fire edict backfired badly – Beale had his worst game in ages, while Folau bombed a last-minute try for victory that will be talked about for as long as rugby is played.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
The original selections were hardly different, they were radical and not necessary.
Had Cheika selected Toomua as fly-half, and kept Beale and Folau in their normal positions with Haylett-Petty on the wing, I have no doubt the Wallabies would have comfortably beaten the Pumas instead of them winning 23-19, their first victory on Australian soil in 35 years.
Next up, the Wallabies will be away to the Boks and Pumas on a long road trip to complete the 2018 Rugby Championship where they are last on the ladder and likely to remain there for the first time.
And with Australia languishing in seventh place in the rugby world rankings, their worst position since the rankings began, rugby is in a right royal mess.
The Michael Cheika selections over the next two weeks will decide whether he has lost the plot or is a strategic genius.
Anything less than option two and the coach, with his staff, must be riding into the sunset with the current Rugby Australia board.
PiratesRugby
Guest
I agree that results aren’t everything but they are significant. If the Wallabies were unusually unlucky with injuries, you could forgive bad results. If it was just one season of failure, it could be forgiven. If there was continuous improvement from new young players, you could say it was rebuilding. But it’s none of these. It’s just year on year of misery from the same core of Tahs playing the same failed gameplan. Cheika has complete control of the process. He must own the failure.
PiratesRugby
Guest
The lack of attack is largely due to poor playmaking options with Foley at 10. He’s just not Test quality. Beale is an electrifying ball runner with a good pass but has poor judgment. His tactical kicking is poor. He’s never been a good 10. And then late in the game Phipps comes on and any attacking potential we had is completely nullified. Beale is a great super sub. Coming on at 12 or 15 in the second half is his best contribution. Foley and Phipps need to be dropped. Folau should learn to play on the wing. But none of that is going to happen while Cheika is coach.
Frank
Guest
Sadly we haven't had a Wallaby coach with a win/loss ratio over 55% since 2013 and over 60% since 2001 which suggests to me that we have an overall decline in player quality/depth. Cheika part of the problem but far from the whole problem.
Liam
Guest
I don't understand your obsession with Michael Hooper's inferiority to David Pocock, David. Sure, Pocock is at present one of our best players, but don't forget his track record. Over the past 8 years he has spent 3-4 on the sidelines with injuries/sabbaticals, and the guy is also 30 years old. By contrast, Hooper is 26 years old, a very very good rugby player (albeit in a different style to Pocock), and has played virtually every test since 2013.
QED
Guest
answer: "he has lost the plot" but then that suggest that he had a plot in the first place . Oh that's right to "play the Australian way" enough said.
Loosey
Roar Rookie
'We need to own it' makes me throw the remote every time! You need to bloody fix it!
Loosey
Roar Rookie
Never mind x-factor, can we just have some guys that catch, pass, kick and don't whinge at the ref every game?
Loosey
Roar Rookie
It's a team sport, why just one face of rugby? Profligacy at the most inappropriate time.
Jockstrap
Roar Rookie
Larkham should just put the 10 jersey on, he would be the best available, a great for rugby. PLAY LARKHAM 10
Tooly
Roar Rookie
In this side. I agree with most of what Luger has said apart from the bit about Folau at 15 ; we are are stronger with DHP at 15. Kurtley is best at 12, he needs good service from the halves and Folau running off him ; I think that Gordon and Foley provide this best. He also needs Kuridrani outside him and that's our problem. There are a few options ; Rona or another 13, Toomua or Hooper who I prefer. There are far more good and sensible comments than the solutions the RA and Chekko come up with. Experiments shouldn't be carried out at test level. On Hooper ; Hawker and Pulver decided on him as the face of Rugby ; bottle blond, surfer, not bad looking, boyish,hyperactive and a handy player. The fact that he was behind Smith, Gill, Hodgson and the injured Pocock as a 7 didn't worry them, they made him Captain and we've gone downhill ever since with this and other inane decisions by the board of the ARU and RA.
Tooly
Roar Rookie
Me too ; there's more to Rugby than big scores.
Jacko
Guest
Peter go easy on the personal attack eh...not cool...And I am me....I am not him...Got it???? And if Jockstrap is male he has balls...if female then sorry...no balls
glider
Guest
Get some help - Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy addressed Collingwood AFL before prelim final
Kane
Roar Guru
Agreed Hoy, I mention this a while ago on this article https://www.theroar.com.au/2018/09/01/roll-the-dice-on-larkham-for-the-2019-world-cup/comment-page-2/ We need to tell Larkham if he wants the top role to go overseas and develop into a more rounded coach. He’ll learn things that he can never learn in Australia. Keep Cheika until the world cup and spend the next year searching for candidates and go through a proper vetting process as opposed to “oh hey, he’s available and Australian, you’ll do” approach. If in 4 years Larkham is ready then he can be the successor, or he may need to wait another four years.
Jockstrap
Roar Rookie
In not Jacki, s
maxxlord
Roar Rookie
Cheika has no rugby IQ. He actually is not clever when it comes to the game. We should not be saying that about a wallaby coach, but it is true. The "High point" was 3 years ago, its been humiliation after humiliation since then and he is taking the team to rock bottom. Sack him and end this nonsense now please.
wade fite
Roar Rookie
Hi David. My apologies...I didn't bother to read your article, just the headline. Surely it is obvious that Michael Cheika IS a genius. By cunning application of appalling coaching technique and inept selection skills, he is cleverly leading us to a world ranking between 20th and 30th by mid next year. Then, and only then, he will unleash the 'flat track bully' Wallabies against the might of The Cook Islands, Korea and Andorra. We will be guaranteed at least a 60% win-loss ratio. Adoring fans will flock back to the game to watch their heroes: Foleyas-the-inept, Nikos Phippos the bovine, Horatio Hooper (of the $6M bridge) and Israel the mighty, slayer of the impure. A plan so simply superb, simply sublime, and simply subtle in its... simplicity(?).
phillip
Guest
Hey guy, where's terrence?
phillip
Guest
I'd like to know if he actually had a plot to lose?
Cadfael
Roar Guru
I don't see Pocock as an x factor player. Folau, Genia, Beale on his day and Hooper when fit.