Who can imagine Eric Morecambe without Ernie Wise? Who can think of HG Nelson without summoning ‘Rampaging’ Roy Slaven in the same mental breath?
Roy and HG are the inventions of Australian comedians Greig Pickhaver and John Doyle. Their sports parody show was syndicated around the globe as The Dream with Roy and HG during the 2000 Olympics, and it was one of the reasons the events in Sydney were so enjoyable.
Who can forget the Greco-Roman wrestling with a Barry White-backed soundtrack? Or Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat, who turned out to be so much more popular with the public than the official mascots of the Games – dubbed ‘Ollie, Millie and Dickhead’ by Roy and H.G.
Fatso appealed to the earthy Australian sense of humour, reacting against overblown pretension like a cat on a hot tin roof. He was nicknamed “the battler’s prince” and was smuggled on to the dais with swimming gold medal winners Michael Klim, Grant Hackett and Susie O’Neill, as well as the entire Australian 4x100m men’s relay team at their medal ceremonies.
Fatso was the conscience of that Olympic Games – a reminder not to take sport too seriously. He left a little something on the running track and at the closing ceremony, the show’s coverage finished with Fatso extinguishing the Olympic Flame with his oversized derriere. He was subsequently bought at auction by the Seven Network executive chairman Kerry Stokes for more than $80,000.
Here is Roy and HG’s summary of Australian sport in 2018:
“And these great heroes we have representing us on the field of battle… none of them can bat!” Rampaging Roy explains, as if to reinforce the lack of reverence for so-called sporting icons.
When the chemistry is right, the impact of a great partnership can far exceed the sum of its parts. The mechanics are a mystery, but certain personalities fire off each other and are stimulated to produce better results than they do as individuals.
Coaches are always on the lookout for combinations which generate that special synergy on the field of play.
Think of cricket’s great partnerships, which always seemed to work better when they were together than when they were apart – Bill Lawry and Bob Simpson come to mind, as do Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee.
Nobody who has seen Will Genia and Quade Cooper playing together in the halves can be in any doubt that the synergy of the combination surpasses their (already high) standard of performance as individuals.
Genia had a stint in French rugby which is best characterized as unremarkable, while Cooper endured the torture of a Brad Thorn-inflicted limbo on his playing career in 2018.
NRC was about as interesting as it got for Quade Cooper last year. (Loryn Ettridge/Rugby Australia)
Both were wandering ronin – warriors without a master – before they found their way back to the same home at the Melbourne Rebels.
Now, the spark has been most definitely been re-ignited, and the flames are being fanned. Now, Will Genia and Quade Cooper are playing the best rugby of any halves combination in Australia, and they are doing it with a distinct lack of reverence for those who pronounced their careers as all over.
The sheer enjoyment they derive from playing as a pair is impossible to miss:
The results in attack tend to be far more obvious with ball in hand than they are on defence: Genia passes to Quade, Quade launches the cross-kick and Jack Maddocks scores at 0:32 on the highlight reel; Genia subtly fakes to the blindside attack from maul at 1:28, persuading his opposite number Tate McDermott to split out and allow Anaru Rangi to plunge through the middle and score.
But it is on defence, and in their application to the physical tasks of the game, that Genia and Cooper’s contribution have been most impressive.
There is a hint of that application in Cooper’s dribble out of defence to create a second try for Maddocks at 2:12 on the reel, but it is only a hint.
Here is the real substance. It starts with defence in the front line from scrums:
In the first example, Genia gets a crafty foot in between McDermott’s hands as he goes to pass – and it was not the only time this type of intervention proved crucial. The bouncing pass encourages Cooper to get up in the face of Duncan Paia’aua and force an error.
In the second instance, Cooper stands up to take Scott Higginbotham as he rumbles away from the base. He takes him high and front on, and strips the ball away in the tackle.
In the third, Quade flattens Samu Kerevi and even attempts a jackal for good measure! The Reds took the hint and stopped running down the channel of the Rebels’ number 10 after that.
But Cooper and Genia’s work from the defensive backfield was even more impactful than it was on the front line:
At the beginning of the clip, Genia is defending on the right end of the line with Jack Maddocks behind him. The Rebels want the two to swap roles, and it is often a transition fraught with danger for the defensive team, but Genia and Maddocks manage it seamlessly. At the end of the sequence, Will Genia is playing right fullback and Quade Cooper is his partner on the left:
This formation was a feature of the Rebels defence:
Both of the Melbourne halves managed their defensive duties from the backfield with grit and determination:
Sefa Naivalu has already beaten both Maddocks and Rangi on this kick return before Cooper brings him to earth with a good tackle. Genia is on hand not only to take down Lukhan Salakaia-Loto after the offload, but also to do the hurtful thing. He puts his body on the line by diving over onto the loose ball, conceding the penalty in order to avoid a fate far worse.
Cooper and Genia’s positioning in the backfield permitted them to see the field and make a strategic choice. At Suncorp, that meant pinning the Reds back in their own red zone with the kicking game:
The most definitive sequence occurred in 59th minute, after a break close to the ruck by Reds number 9 McDermott.
In the first part of the sequence, Genia dumps McDermott after the break, while Cooper backs off to buy time for other Rebels defenders to regroup. He gets in Samu Kerevi’s way after he receives the ball in support, and makes another long on-ball sally to delay release on the next phase.
On the next phase, Cooper is already back in action, making a low cover tackle on Sakalaia-Loto out near the left sideline:
The sequence appears to end with a try for Reds replacement hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa – but appearances prove deceptive. Upon review, it is Will Genia, doing the unseen work to dislodge the ball from McDermott’s hands and force a knock-on, who is the battling prince of the play.
Summary
Partnerships develop synergy over and above individual abilities. You can see it in sport, and even in comedy duos.
The popularity of The Dream with Roy and HG effectively supplanted the officially approved Olympic mascots with Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat. Not only the sporting public, but even the competitors themselves embraced the raucous irreverence of Fatso.
Similarly, the true sporting icons are the ones who are prepared to start again and rewrite their own history when most are happy to write them off. They have earned the right to raise the middle finger to their critics.
Will Genia and Quade Cooper are doing just that at the Melbourne Rebels in 2019, and not just with the quality of their attacking play, which has always been out of the top drawer.
They are doing it on defence, and in the small but vital physical moments of the game. That, more than anything, illustrates the spirit of revival in their play as a pair.
Both are halfway to heaven, the heaven of a joint appearance at the World Cup in Japan later in 2019. Whether they make it to the upper reaches of the firmament will be for others to decide, but their rugby is doing all of the talking right now.
somer
Guest
They certainly are, they've only made the greatest contributions to science and technology, created the most advanced and free societies, and yet every minor ill that afflicts our relatively benign modern day lives are clearly their fault. Supermen they are not, poor form really.
QED
Roar Rookie
I guess RA never considered that the same statement could have been just as powerful by giving the 27 year old Hooper a 2 or 3 year lucrative contract and Kerevi the same.
QED
Roar Rookie
would those high number of matches be the ones at 7 while there is a better 7 being played out of position ?
Fin
Guest
Here you go Nick. An article from when RM was setting up the Melbourne Rebels back in 2010/11. ROD MACQUEEN is fond of quoting the warrior sage of Chinese antiquity, Sun Tzu. Here is a Sun Tzu quote: "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." Macqueen is subtle and slightly mysterious, although it might surprise him to hear it said. His manner is genial and undemonstrative; a quiet grin echoes many of his thoughts. He doesn't dodge questions but his answers are not always what you expect. Asked which he prefers watching on television, rugby league or rugby union, having played both in his youth, he says: "Union - generally." At the age of 61, the man who won the 1999 Rugby World Cup as coach of the Wallabies is trim and athletic with greying hair. His body type I would describe as strong, but he does not give you the impression of being a big man, although perhaps that also leads back to Sun Tzu. All warfare, he said, is based on the art of deception. When I started questioning him and he saw the direction of the interview, Macqueen suggested I read his biography, One Step Ahead, which he wrote with a former rugby teammate, Kevin Hitchcock, who was made quadriplegic in a diving accident. So I read the book. For someone with an AFL background, it was like studying another religion — like a Protestant reading a Catholic book about the lives of the saints. Macqueen's early story also reads like another world because it comes from a time now referred to in rugby union as the amateur era. It's also a Sydney story, a northern-beaches story and, to some extent, it is a story about class - the business class of middle Australia. Macqueen's father was a businessman. Macqueen was a kid with an unusual range of instincts - he was artistic, he was exceptionally tough physically and he was ambitious. He got into trouble a lot at school - he attended St Andrew's Cathedral School and then Manly High School - although he says he always responded well to teachers who excited in him a desire to learn. From the outset, he had three sports. He rowed surfboats in summer and played both rugbies, league and union, in the winter. After union became his rugby of choice, he pursued that and surfboat rowing with an intensity that is almost startling. It is interesting to learn that, as a rugby player, Macqueen was the team's enforcer. I imagine Sydney club rugby in the 1970s would have been a willing affair with a lot going on beyond the sight of the referees. Macqueen's first coach at the Warringah club, John Anderson, recalled that, at the age of 18, Macqueen "tackled everything that moved. He was a bit of a wild man and wouldn't be intimidated by anyone. I must admit he was hard to discipline and keep under control, but he certainly showed the way for everyone else". Macqueen captained the club, and won four best and fairests. He played in representative teams but not for his state or the Wallabies. His surfboat career was similar in that his crew won state but not national titles. He pursued both sports to the utmost of his time and ability while also marrying his first love and having two children. In a similarly single-minded way, he pursued his business interests, forming companies with teammates so that business partners and teammates become one and the same. Macqueen is a commercial artist whose business has revolved around having better ideas than other advertising agencies. He's a lateral thinker who is also methodical and highly organised. When he first became coach of Warringah in 1986, he surprised the players and the committee by presenting them with a detailed business plan for the club's future. During his time as coach of the New South Wales state side, one of his players, journalist and author Peter Fitzsimmons, wrote: "He is not a barge-andbash’em coach, but nor does he have a particular rugby philosophy. Words that spring to mind about him are: organisation, discipline, planning, intensity, secrecy, method, organisation, discipline, details, discipline, details." As a coach, Macqueen has had success at every level. In 1991, the NSW team had 10 successive victories under him, twice defeating traditional rivals Queensland as well as the national teams of England and Argentina. In the wake of the game going professional in 1996 - what Macqueen describes as "going from evolution to revolution overnight" - he took on a new club, the ACT Brumbies. In their second year, they made the Super 12 play-offs. But the pinnacle of his sporting achievement is the 1999 World Cup, about which he tells a couple of interesting stories in One Step Ahead. MACQUEEN's meticulous planning had assumed the Wallabies would play the All Blacks in the final but, in the semi-final, the All Blacks had an historic meltdown and lost to France. After the match, several All Blacks had facial injuries consistent with eye-gouging. There had also been what is referred to in the book as some "pulling of the private parts". Macqueen and his captain John Eales agreed before the match that if the French employed such tactics against them and the referee failed to intervene, Eales would threaten to lead his team from the field. And, indeed, the threat was made. Then, at half-time, Macqueen and his assistants had to catch a lift down to the team rooms beneath the stadium. Who should march around the corner and load themselves into the lift but the French coaching staff? The atmosphere was tense. Then the lift stopped again, the doors opened and a man entered pushing a figure in a wheelchair, insisting that it was an emergency. In fact, the man wasn't ill. He was a drunk Frenchman who vomited all over their shoes. I imagine it as one of those moments when Macqueen summoned a Sun Tzu quote and remained perfectly calm. When I looked back at my notes after interviewing Rod Macqueen, there wasn't a lot there. But a few things stood out. The first was him saying that he believes the rules for life, sport and business are the same. To this end, in addition to committing themselves to the club, players who sign with the Rebels are required to commit themselves to a school, a charity, a rugby club and a business in the Melbourne area. The one revealing thing I'd read about Macqueen in a newspaper story since his arrival in Melbourne was that he believes in balance. When I asked him: "Do you believe in balance?" I saw that quiet smile again. "Absolutely," he replied. It was the most definite answer he gave me. Macqueen is also a man who has experienced major illness three times in his life. The first was a bout of rheumatic fever when he was a child that sent him to bed for seven months and left him with a wasted limb that he worked feverishly to strengthen. In 1987, a bout of chronic atypical pneumonia that didn't respond to antibiotics landed him in intensive care. Two years later, a tumour was diagnosed beside his pituitary gland that was causing bleeding into the brain. He went into that operation with the strong possibility that he would be blind when he regained consciousness. On each occasion, he reflected on the lesson of the experience. In 1987, when there was still some doubt about whether he would survive pneumonia, he found himself in a hospital above a beach where he had often trained - for the first time he perceived the beauty of the place. He has also never forgotten that, in the middle of a still-water rowing race, a cox got to him not by shouting but speaking quietly. Macqueen was in the stroke position. He responded to the cox, the other oarsmen responded to him, and the crew came from behind and won. He describes it as "an almost mystical experience". As for his experience of cancer, he says it's the best thing that ever happened to him. "It taught me to take time out and smell the roses. I tell my players to make sure they take the time to smell the roses." In 2001, he finished with the Wallabies with no ambition to coach again although he remained involved in aspects of the game such as the international rules committee. His business got to the stage where he no longer needed to be involved on a day-to-day basis. He was involved in the bid to bring a Super Rugby team to Melbourne and that seems to have led to him becoming the club's coach. Rugby union in Melbourne could hardly have found a more impressive figurehead. Macqueen sees it as a two or three-year commitment and already has a succession plan in place. "I'm not a career coach," he says. "I never was." He doesn't say it but I suspect he would find the life of a career coach out of balance.
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
It was hearing of McQueen’s research into the Art of War that led me to read the book for the first time.
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
No it wasn't Ken - although I've no doubt Rod Macqueen would have agreed with him!
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
WB, “not by a large margin”? Perhaps, but within that margin is deception and an unleashing of the cumulative attacking power of runners outside him. Little margins count for a lot at 10, methinks.
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
AJ, you forgot Backdoor Benny.
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
Nic, is your note of Sun Tzu a deliberate reference to McQueen, who was known for his broad research into the philosophy of battle?
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
Yes Nic, and they were an acquired taste. It took a long time for them to move beyond their cult following into the mainstream. I am proud to say that I was an early adopter. I knew em when they were nuthin’!!
Jacko
Guest
Maybe Johnson and O'Connor like Foley.......Just because they may disagree with your opinion does not make them wrong......It only makes them wrong from YOUR perspective...
jacko
Guest
Thats it...Results are not the way to judge a coach
Hoy
Roar Guru
For me? Is it crazy for me to say a free flowing rugby player mightn’t play as well under a very rigid structured coach? Is that padded room worthy?
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
Thanks Nigel - yes those were club combos in NZ as well, so they knew each other's play very thoroughly!
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
I think what Larkham had to deal with was a player tired out by his defensive duties Hoy!
Nicholas Bishop
Expert
Understandable comment Fin – and I’d guess players would get even more caustic advice from the likes of Sekope Kepu and Will Genia and Quade Cooper, who also spent time in France (but not as happy as Luke Jones’). As I’ve said often enough before, I think everything depends on where you go. For example, if a top Aussie player went to Toulouse in France or Exeter in England, I think he’d both feel at home, earn some corn and improve his game – ask Nic White or Greg Holmes or the Arnold twins. But that isn’t the case everywhere.
Hoy
Roar Guru
Actually I honestly can’t remember back that far... was that Larkham too? I thought for a while he can in after that?
Hoy
Roar Guru
Who was coaching it when Larkham was there? Was it all him? Was Larkham responsible for the rotational attack? It was there before he came along wasn’t it? During the last WC, we now know Mitchell was targeted as the open winger... so was Larkham made to use that style of attack?
Hoy
Roar Guru
That’s odd Cynical isn’t it because first, Cooper he had to prove he was enjoying his footy, remember, then he wasn’t playing super rugby so couldn’t be selected, despite others being called in without having been tested at super level that year... Cheika speaks well and says things I agree with, but his actions make no sense to me whatsoever.
MitchO
Guest
The cycling governing bodies have/had a lot to answer for because the cheating was so indemnic (and may still be pretty bad). Reading various articles about the EPO made me wonder how many footballers are on the stuff. Take a needle, expand your lung capacity. Particularly a sport like AFL where they run a proper half marathon but it has to be an issue in any sport where you could benefit from increased lung capacity. I read Colin Scotts biography "All Balls" about him being an aussie rugby player who made it to the NFL via the Uni of Hawaii. He said it was so easy to beat the drug testing program that it almost an intelligence test. If you got caught then you were too dumb to play.