Stephen Larkham sacked as Wallabies assistant coach

sure. a good player doesn't always turn out to be a good coach. he still has support from RA so maybe he's better and we just haven't seen the results yet. Eddie was a dog coach IMO as a wallaby coach but he's did wonders with Japan and doing good things with England.

i think that is the issue - BL laked the maturity to coach at super rugger level but dont lose heart - even Tana Umanga failed despite some success at miter 10 level. people shud realize that coaching at super rugger level is not easy - coz the competition is hard also u need a very good talent pool - becoz injuries are a plenty. i think one issue with aussy is that there is not a very good lower competition like miter 10 or currie cup , where a coach can learn the ropes.

Neither am I Over Here. It's Cheika's fault, and Grey should have gone ages ago...but Larkham has showed elsewhere that he's limited.

my God, who is Raelenes stylist???? I think she should dump the herman munster look and go with Uncle Fester ;)

stop being so complex rabbitz, cheika stamped his feet and Bernie had to leave. RA couldn't afford to pay out his contract so he had a stay somewhere so they moved him to the mail room and gave it a nice title. problem solved, not so complex ;)

with chieka being sole selector etc, do you really think he would have let larkham totally loose as attack coach? our defence and forward play was pathetic, I wouldn't have minded if grey had been cut loose. our attack was stupid, too many tricky stupid switches etc behind the gain line, very easy to slide defend. I'm not ready to pile all that on larkham.

You mean the same way Quade was constantly sent out with Pat McCabe at 12? And still has a better winning record than Foley? God Foley is awful. Is it wrong to hope he retires before the WC?

and dear God, I hope the number of times that runners head towards the outside channels, rather than running straight. I know it gets harped on, but you have to earn the right to go wide, and we haven't for a long time.

I like your political analysis of the situation mate, but am terrified if that were the case. Larkham as attack coach has been a failure. As Brumbies coach - their attack was a failure, and they were completely one dimensional. If Cheika walks, they have a ready-made coach in Johnson for a single tournament, but I'd keep Larkham a mile away from it until he's gone north and done a proper apprenticeship.

Interesting news. Dunno exactly what's going on where. All I can say is the Brums, when they finally shed Jake Ball, McKellar's Brums were AWESOME!!!!

Larkham now has the platform to launch himself... Bit like coaching Colts, let us see what he has between the ears. Go for it Bernie... can't go any further backwards.

Ed, I love those mid-winter matches where it’s like an ice box.

I’m going to give Larkham the benefit of assuming he just couldn’t live with Cheika’s selection policy any more. If that’s the case, all credit to Larkham. That said - how any of the coaches have retained their jobs is just bewildering.

*tenets - stupid auto-correct.

I’m with you DP, our attack wasn’t setting the world on fire pre-Larkham but our scrum was a strength and our line out and general forward play were a strength while Ledesma was around. Since Raiwalui took over the forwards role there’s been a notable decline in all aspects especially the line out.

No probs.. I just offered a passive observation, in which I said he was hot (ie very good) but also cold (not-so-good) on any given day. I preferred Michael Lynagh, but that's just me. I'm not a facts guy, certainly not like the ones you've gone with above. Reason being that in a Test between 46 players plus associated coaches and philosophies/tactics, hundreds of variables contribute to each Test, and I don't see one player being able to mandate a result on his own when faced with so many uncontrollable variables over 80 free-flowing minutes. I figure that win ratio was more to do with a very astute coach getting the best out of most key positions and players, and adhering to the tenements of traditional rugby. I wonder if Cheika's mad rule has frayed all players and tactics to a point of madness now, that we can't compete coherently anymore. The players all seem like rabbits in the headlights (other than Pocock of course). If Cheika had never eventuated as Aus coach, I wonder if we'd still be comfortably ranked second.

Barnes played a scorcher against Wales, on debut I think? Is that right? Then in the QFs, our scrum issues came to the fore again...

To me, it's been a useless Australian thing for too long... go back to traditional 12... Kerevi is that man... but use him well... he will get you over the gain line... use him like a battering ram, as Foley does, and he is pointless. Having said that, Larkham was a fan of tweaking Toomua and Lealiifano and switching them in and out... I always thought Lealiifano was a 10 playing 12, and Toomua a 12 playing 10.

Where did I call you anything? And not really, I didn’t imply every issue Toomua had was the result of Foley. If you put words in someone’s mouth, you can claim they did anything. The Wallabies’ win percentage from around 04-07 was something like 20 per cent higher when Larkham played vs didn’t. Despite our terrible scrum, lack of good forwards, etc, etc we were number 2 in the world for most of the period, had very good attacking stats and won around 70 per cent of matches. When he didn’t play, we were a 50 per cent team. You’re just plain wrong about Larkham.

As you wish, Fionn. You imply everything, then argue that you didn't "say" anything. I instigated an observation about Larkham - you jumped in with belligerent rudeness in three words - it's actually you who contributed nothing. More tolerance and knowledge / less keyboard hero / zero juvenile name-calling, yes? #simpleton.