The future of the Wallabies

Agree that petulant public behaviour is not positive so that particular role might not suit but there is a lot of coaching and rugby knowledge here. As far as I can see arrogance has been quite highly valued at RA but hopefully they might consider it less important in future. Note that is a bit tongue in cheek, arrogance and ego are also necessary at the top level to win, not so necessary in many other aspects of the administration of rugby.

I tend to agree but I just don’t agree that the petulance and arrogance we saw week in and week out is worth anything to Australia

Count the number of quality professional and semi-professional coaches currently working in Australia. Subtract foreigners and calculate the significant change by the arrival back in the country of two national assistants. His international record was not great etc. but he has one two provisional titles, RWC runner up and International Coach of the Year. I don't think we can afford any loss of coaching capability.

Cheika a loss to Australian rugby! Really? The worst coach we’ve ever had a loss? The only loss was that he didn’t have the integrity to depart 2 years earlier when it was obvious he wasn’t good enough for the job

If I never see Beale in a Wallaby jersey again I’ll be happy

I hope Rennie isn’t going to be judged on games against the ABs from the start. The team sits at 7 on the world rankings, and TBH they’re almost lucky to be that high after the last 4 years of bad play, so I’m not sure that the target should be beating the ABs who are consistently 1 or 2. Maybe we need to set our target a bit lower with wins against France (5), Wales (6) and Scotland (8) first

Can someone PLEASE tell me why RA should get to keep the entirety of registration fees for the year? Even though it's now a significantly reduced season. I don't care if they go bankrupt, in all honesty the organisation needs to burn down and be born again.

We’ll agree to disagree on this one Mug and that’s completely fine :)

Actually this was what Pulver said. "Both were world-class options … Jake's case was very compelling … he has an outstanding coaching record,'' Fairfax Media quoted Pulver as saying. ''I just think there has probably been a little bit more creativity inside Ewen's programs. He's very vocal in saying 'winning is not enough'. You've got to win in a way that excites and captures the hearts and minds of the rugby community. I agree [with McKenzie]. At this point in time I'd say Ewen [compared with White] has the strongest point in that particular area … One of the things Ewen came out strongly on was the ability to coach the Australian way.'' Both were good. McKenzie had achieved success with more creativity and considered success and appealing to fans to both be important.

Sorry, I am not seeing it. I agree that all coaches can and do prepare very specific strategies around specific players and specific situations and go to the extent of creating sequences which attempt to control that player or force him to do something etc. All except for Cheika maybe? He was claiming he did not, although I do not believe it. He certainly seemed to rely on Plan A and in 2014 he largely relied on NSW generally dictating the game to the opposition. My recollections with McKenzie went way beyond that. Almost to the point that we were a kicking team one week, passing the next, then aggressive defenders etc. I get that it may be required against certain teams who will dictate the game to you unless you play differently. I get that you would be unbeatable if you could execute all of those variations week to week. In the end he did not have the players to do it (does anyone?) and I do not think any successful team does either. The Crusaders and All Blacks are hard to beat because they can effectively change their patterns in a game as required. In our case it just came across to me as desperation, if not misrepresentation. In his time at NSW we could not get the ball from half to wing (unless on the short side!). At Qld I believe he basically got out of the way, to his credit, and let Quade do his thing. However after 2011 other sides started to figure out how to counter (mainly) Digby. He gave QC so many options, plus if QC had been able to repeat his 2011 season he would have been the greatest 10 ever. Pulver labelling McKenzie as a great attacking coach and building all of that expectation was not helpful either. Nobody could have delivered on the myth that Pulver was spruiking either. He had his own problems to solve and Ewan was just a neat solution. Back to my point about coaching development failure, dressing up Ewen as the jewel in the ARU coaching crown, rather than revealing he was the only hat they had in the cupboard.

Yes I agree regarding the skills base of the players which appears to have declined. I just can't think of any of our modern players who have added to their natural game. I think anyone who watched the Reds play regularly while McKenzie was coach could easily view the different game plans being executed. There are so many ways to win a game of rugby and I appreciated the cerebral aspect of his game. Perhaps he was the last of Australians who played smart rugby. We have certainly lost that reputation :) I'm not sure if you have watched the Michael Jordan/Chicago Bulls series on netflix but it was apparent how much effort they put into research and preparing for specific opposition players. And how much effort they put into developing their individual games driven by a very demanding Michael Jordan who didn't tolerate poor performance.

:crying: Last couple of years at Moore Park that ends up a close game

Point of disclosure, I didn’t. I also think he talked up this whole idea a lot more than you are rationalising here, or I could put into words. I think part of the media attraction was that he did present as a highly sophisticated coach operating at a different intellectual level to most others. One of the reasons I think Johnson’s role is important is that the whole head coach emphasis is wrong. The head coach should be a visible pinnacle but the success of the Wallabies and SR sides should be based on an enormous iceberg of consistent coaching and skills development for players at all levels. This is clearly absent because of decades of neglect. McKenzie should have been able to have a rewarding and well remunerated career (if he chose) ensuring that Australian forwards had world class skills. Instead he and others are continually forced to step up or out. We both probably agree that McKenzie is a big loss to Australian rugby. Cheika is also. It is probably not surprising that they might be opposites. Given the circumstances, someone the opposite was probably more attractive than someone the same. Speaking of decades of neglect. How is it that McKenzie was the only viable home grown alternative to Deans in 2013 and Cheika was the only viable alternative to him in 2014. As I write it reminds me, was McKenzie the only viable home grown alternative to Deans in 2007? When will this nightmare end?

I think that's what he did and was doing Mug. I was happy with the trajectory Mackenzie had us on after Deans probably stayed on a season or two too long. I was at his last game, the Bledisloe at Suncorp when we played brilliantly only to lose in the last minute after Nick White kicked aimlessly to give the AB's another chance. It's not one or the other. You don't either play your own way or have tactics. Preferably it is not particularly sophisticated (look at Nathan Grey's very sophisticated defence patterns...). I think its about putting the opposition in situations and positions that they would prefer not to be in while using the strengths of your own players. Maybe for a particular team you kick more to a particular corner with a good chase because that winger can't kick? Just subtle adjustments to the game plan that are practised the week prior. I obviously rate McKenzie's coaching very highly. He was pretty much the opposite of Cheika and I think Australian rugby has suffered immensely from his absence.

‘Winning fixes everything’. Gosh I hate that cliche. Quite simply winning cannot fix everything when the rugby code in Oz is quite sadly on the terminal list unless some intelligent, and tough medicine is taken. Is the aim to have a strong wallabies team or actually a very healthy code that is fuelling the wallabies ie; strong grassroots, through growing talent through growing massive support through making smart decisions for the whole of the code from bottom through to top etc etc amongst other things. As an example, When exactly is there going to be a debate about the administration of the game in the States because as a general comment it seems to me that a large part of the problem has been the States rugby admin which is riddled with ego, agendas, and D grade sports admin people. I sincerely hope the new Chairman, the stand in CEO/next CEO really take the opportunity that has been presented by our potentially terminal situation to have a red hot crack and enact major change across the whole of the game. If we can survive of course.

Of course. We had such a side of champions completely in control of the skills of their own positions and able to easily adapt game to game to play a completely different style, depending on who we are playing. All the champion sides play like that. Personally I would prefer to build a game around the players he had and the adaptability to vary it as required. Maybe it could be sophisticated and intelligent if you are winning most of your games convincingly. We weren't.

Well I'm not expecting WBs to win any Tests against ABs this yr or next. Will be a huge upset if they do. If they can at least be competitvie I'll be happy. Also not expecting many wins against any nation ranked higher than Aust. And not sure there's any "rugby mob" left in Aust either. The ex-mob will be watching AFL and NRL instead. It would be totally unreasonable for anyone to expect instant success from Rennie imo. We may see a few wins in 2022/23 though - if all goes well :thumbup:

I expect no real details on selections. I want to understand selections and see that they are merit based. I can do that if Rennie and Co select players who are in the top 2 or 3 for form at that time. This isn't something that needs to be communicated. Just something that is obvious to those of a fair mind after watching a lot of games. I do however still think that if there's a valid reason for not selecting a player who is tearing the comp apart, the selectors should articulate it. And not something like "he didn't look like he was enjoying his footy"

How is McKenzie actually devising a game plan to deal with the strengths and weaknesses of different opponents ridiculous? Sounds like intelligence to me.

So you expect details on why different players are selected and not selected each game but no indication on what the long term strategy for rugby is? He should not have to do anything other coaches had to do, but then we expect him to win anyway? What is the plan if he has a negative win ratio at the end of 2021? Pay him out? We all sit here enthusiastically hoping it gets better before the next RWC? Love him because he is not from NSW? Hate him because he is from NZ?