What legacy does Michael Cheika leave, and what does his successor need to fix first?

I think Pocock is done. Too many injuries. Need new blood at the 7

No, the poor performance of the Wallabies partially reflects RA and the performance of the people at the top, but largely it reflects Cheika and his coaching. You refer to Castle making a whole series of blunders. What are these? Lots of people assert this, but shy away from actually naming all of her mistakes. The more we here about it, the clearer it becomes that the reason the relationship broke down with Cheika is largely due to him and the fact that he seemed to regard himself as above oversight and above consequences for poor results. As for the plan to address the 'problem' (I assume you mean Cheika last year) they were in a pretty hard position either way. If they sacked him (which was potentially needed) they faced a large payout and the prospect of not being able to get a top quality coach, as most coaches were contracted through to the end of the Cup and few would want the job of taking on the Wallabies in a poor state with less than a years preparation. Installing Johnson and the selectors was not a bad compromise - didn't work, but again that seems largely down to Cheika. The appointment of Johnson was also not just about managing Cheika in the short term but about restructuring the organisation to bring into line with more successful models elsewhere - hence why he has a long term contract. Castle is not above criticism - I'd say for instance that he handling of the first Folau affair (the one he wasn't sacked for) was not very convincing - but most of the problems in the organisation predate her and are only starting to be cleared up now. She may still fail, but its a bit premature to be blaming her for our woes yet.

CEOs are not paid huge salaries because life is fair. They are paid huge salaries to get top performance no matter what the challenges are. Castle has already made a whole series of blunders. She should not have been appointed to the role in the first place. Another decision that would not have been made if we had a competent board. In regards to Cheika, she didn't even have a working relationship with the head coach of the national team. That is the absolute basics of her job! She came up with a plan which we could all see did not address the problem and was ever going to work. She was allowed to try it and predictably it failed as miserably as most anticipated that it would. A CEO with rugby nouse would have seen that as clear a day at least a year ago. A the end of the day, the poor performance of the Wallabies are just one symptom of an inept board and CEO. If that is the trigger that is required to get the unions off their backside to demand a new board and CEO then let it be so.

Still no, has all the draw backs you point to for a larger market developed over more than a century that provides the national team. Not saying the force decision was right, but it's not the game changer for talent.

What about one that had been carefully nurtured for 10 years to the point it was starting to produce higher levels of talented players?

Then another mature market with defined incumbents is a poor choice.

Did you read the whole post or was it too much for your attention span?

everyone is available :stoked:

I think the NSW/QLD core is mostly milked dry personally. Rugby plays a poor third cousin to League and AFL (not to mention soccer and basketball) in competing for athletes. They need to open up new avenues to find quality athletes.

Ex force, that's kind of my point. If the 300k is material then you're already in trouble. If I'm rugby, I'm more worried about the 10+ million they alienate in their heartland.

Not sure what the immigrants become Australian comment means. It's still a small part. They need to figure out a more inclusive strategy to recruitment for all of Australia, more so their NSW/QLD core.

Gold!

But they only found out how hopeless he actually was while he was All Black Assistant Coach didn’t they which is why he was sacked and wasn’t appointed head coach after John Mitchell and why they didn’t want a bar of him even after the 2007 World Cup debacle by Henry Hansen and Smith when Deans was the logical obvious choice. Who is talking rubbish ?

I'm not pinning hopes on anything to do with RA. I'm simply saying, in response to your quite correct comment regarding the demographic of eastern states rugby clubs, it's a different scene in WA. Those immigrants mostly have kids who are Australian, to ignore them is to hand them over to AFL and league, which RA has done, or would have done had it not been for Twiggy's GRR rescue line.

Correct he was All Blacks assistant coach - ie not ignored By golly you talk utter rubbish as I said

100% Deans record against NZ/SA/UK/Fra 46% Cheika 24% Against 6N and SAANZAR 57% to 42% Connolly's record is identical and Eddies 4-8% points worse. To much my gut tells me he was rubbish without any facts to back it up.

Yeah perhaps, sometimes those expectations don't gel with reality. This time round going into the RWC there were 5 teams genuinely on similar levels, Eng, NZ, Ire, Wal, SA. Time since has proven some have improved and others not, but an AB's in final is still not a given. Likewise 91 team was well past their prime. 95 had not been a great team until the actual cup (aussie were favourites) 99 lost 5 matches in a row in 98 03 England had dominated World Rugby for the previous 18 months So sometimes the press and the Fans get a bit ahead of themselves with AB expectations.

Some solutions? 1. Non Waratahs aligned coach 2. Select players on performance not the SR jersey they wear 3. Select players in their best positions (example- Beale is NOT a fullback, Hodge is not a winger) 4. Skills skills skills 5. Bring through the ranks some seriously good kickers 6. Fix defensive pattern (has been terrible especially wide) 7. Acknowledge that we are not good enough and set about fixing the obvious- we are sick of captains and coaches saying ‘we are disappointed’ after pretty much every loss (every match?) - of course we are disappointed!!!! - change what needs changing, continuing to do what we know doesn’t work is just stupidity

How well did Pocock play this RWC? If it was Hooper that threw the intercept pass you guys would be all over it.

He plays with a lot of effort. But is he really a 7? His best role to me is that of a sub that brings energy in the 60th min