The glaring issues exposed for all Aussie teams in SRP round one

TBH with the complicated state vs federal issues in Australian rugby I’m not sure what the answer is. I just get a bit frustrated with the people running the club rugby in NSW and QLD who seem to think that their precious clubs should be the focus of rugby when it’s clearly not good enough to prepare players for either Super rugby or International rugby

Hey John. I’m in favour of Nawaqanitawase at 15. Ease Jorgensen into it more. Although I suspect we’ll see Harrison there soon enough. My 11-15 this week would have been: 11. Jorgensen 12. Foketi 13. Tuipulotu 14. Perese 15. Nawaqanitawase Hoping that Pietsch is back next week to take the 11 and Jorgensen can have his workload managed. Backrow I’d love to see Hoops given a bit of rest and run: 6. Harris 7. Gamble 8. Gleeson And Swinton off the bench. Warren-Vosayaco was reportedly good for the A’s last week and an option as well. I wouldn’t even mind seeing Lachie as the bench lock to fit RWV in.

That will work 100% for the wallabies. But what about super rugby clubs?

There's in fact a very simple fix for this situation and the best thing is it wont cost any money to implement. RA just needs to abolish its arbitrary restriction on the selection of foreign-based players for the Wallabies. If they do that, overnight Australia's depth stock will increase ten-fold and the outsourcing of player development for the last 20+ years, whether by incompetence or design, will finally bear fruit.

You're wrong, Malo. The Kiwi Super franchises and ABs have very deep roots in the regions that they draw their players from, where they help to nurture and support all of their junior/feeder clubs in order to develop the future talent for the higher levels. This is backed up by strong development competitions such as the U19s, U20s and U21s as well Junior ABs, Maori XV and NZ XV. And they have multiple tiers to their national domestic competition, allowing their players infinitely more high intensity playing time than Australia ever could provide its players. This is why they remain dominant from generation to generation. Any deficiencies are usually to do with the immediate program at the club itself and can therefore be easily remediated rather than being a systemic problem such as what Australia faces and why the issues seem to be so intractable for Australia's Super teams and the Wallabies. Systemic problems can only be addressed when you have enough time and scope to work through solutions. If your teams are only playing for a total of 3-4 months of the year, then you don't have much opportunity to test different options to find an effective solution as the problems tend to only present themselves when your program is under stress i.e. facing the rigours of the season. If Australia had a genuine national domestic competition and had a proper development lifecycle for its players all the way from the junior-most levels up to the international level, the loss of a single experienced player wouldn't even be a consideration. There'd be any number of like-for-like replacements. Thus, injuries wouldn't matter in the slightest. Currently, they're almost a death knell to any Australian campaign.

You mention lack of experience as a significant deficiency in Australian rugby, which I agree it is, but exactly how do you imagine that is to be ameliorated, given that the only high intensity rugby Australian players are exposed to during the year is Super Rugby (assuming they want to be eligible for Wallabies selection)? The simple fact is that Australia has very limited options to create genuine depth of experience across its player base because of how little high intensity rugby Australian players can participate in at present. The lack of investment in the development of a genuine national domestic competition for the last 20 years is coming back to bite Australian rugby on the arse very hard and until they do something, this isn't going to change. Also, if RA won't allow the coach of the day to select from the entirety of the potential Australian player base, not just those currently under contract to Super Rugby, then the most experienced players who are almost exclusively playing offshore these days can never pass on that experience to the next generation and Australian rugby will be stuck forever reinventing the wheel.

G’day John, . For the Tahs, I think they really didn’t match selections to tactics. They put a major focus on running their forward off the 9. Tahs pack handled the ball (pass or run) 124 times compared to the Brumbies pack’s 72. . Unfortunately for them their backrow selection didn’t match the tactics. Of their 6/8’s Swinton is the weakest carrier compared to Gleeson and Harris. The starting backrow of Swinton and dual opensides ran counter to how they were trying to progress the ball. . They doubled that down by playing two 10s, the idea of a continuity game from the forwards is to then capitalise when the space appears, they had one less strike runner due to playing two 10s, one of them out of position. . Defensively they’ve continued with Perese at 13 where he struggles and that cruelled them further. . They made one other key error in not protecting their attacking rucks strongly enough (quite criminal with the amount of forward carrying off 9) and the list above, plus the scrum pressure faced with Bell/Latu/HJH not there created a mountain for them to climb. . Back row balance better this week, Tolu on the bench is good to see. They’ve got quite a bit to fix though based off that first performance.

I hear what you're saying but outside of Super Rugby and the Wallabies, what actual high intensity rugby do most Australian rugby players actually participate in? Do they, for instance, have leave to go and play in off-shore competitions on short-term contracts when not otherwise required? Do they have leave to play in domestic club rugby? I don't know the answers to these questions but I think you're overestimating how current the match fitness is of any Australian player outside of the regular playing windows. So between those times when presumably they aren't doing much rugby, how do you imagine they are to maintain the high performance levels needed for Super Rugby and internationals? It seems to be me that what is happening every season is that Australia is essentially starting from scratch whilst every other program is hitting the ground running. Their players aren't fresh, they're battle hardened and ready to go. Ours are the greenhorns who will take a few weeks to get back into the flow of things by which time the season has almost passed them by with nothing to show for it. Australia does not play nearly enough rugby to remain at the level to compete with the other top 10 nations and until this addressed in any meaningful way, the lack of performance and poor results will continue.

I always enjoy reading your analysis, John, because the insights you bring and the points you raise always invite further discussion as well as being interesting in and of themselves. Already, there are as many positive signs as there are negative signs for Australian rugby and the difference between those teams who will make it to the end of the season on a high and those who drop off will be largely determined by who can maintain the healthiest and fittest roster for entirety of the competition, a perennial problem for any Australian franchise. I'm not sure what points people imagine they are addressing when they use the general descriptions of things that might be deficiencies, either what they think is actually the problem and therefore what potentially are the solutions. And, in either case, they assume that the brain's trusts at the various teams aren't already on top of it. An example is when people use the terms "skills" or "fitness". Those are too broad for you to simply throw out as a lump all-encompassing ideas; you have to be specific with examples. Australian teams do not lack for physical capacity or endurance. They do not have an absence of basic handling ability and general rugby skills in terms of passing, catching, running and tackling, to name a few. They don't struggle with their positioning. None of these basic "skills" or "fitness" are genuine deficiencies. Yes, there is definitely room for improvement in all these categories but they aren't actually significantly worse in any of these areas than anyone else. This is evidenced by the fact that over the last 4 years, despite the woeful W/L ratio, the actual wins and losses bar a few exceptions on average were within less than 10 points either way. That doesn't strike me as indicative of teams and programs that are lacking in basic skills and fitness. The actual issues lie in decision making and composure and patience i.e. mental fortitude and resilience. These are the areas that Australian teams have struggled with for a very long time and the areas that do not seem to change season on season. It is these factors which I would dearly love to see some real improvement in because if they can be solved Australian rugby will genuinely become entertaining again.

You don’t need another tier, just finance the clubs and encourage pathways. The nrc was a joke. Look at Jorgensen and many club players walk straight in from school or club and perform at super level. NZ promote their clubs , hence superior players and skills.

Yep no consequences for poor behaviour allows the poor behaviour to continue. If he was the only one I’d be less concerned but the number of players who can only pass accurately one way, can’t kick with both feet and make the same mistakes over and over – like kicking a ball out on the full or not kicking it out when they want to is just mind boggling

Hahahahaha if only

Player depth is a real issue. Unlike our cousins across the ditch we don't have a 3rd tier competition to pull players from. When the reds loose thier top 3 locks they have no option but to pull some bloke from club land where there is a huge gap between. Regardless if players move OS for more playing time (the Mack Hansens), more money as they get older (the Scott Sios), or the players who were typically the journeyman of a club (The Angus Scott Youngs') we loose depth and experience needed to compete week in week out. A third tier comp will help develop the next generation of players but it will not prevent many players from leaving who we want to stay as only so many players can fit into 5 full professional teams.

if only there was a level between super rugby and club rugby. One might call this competition the NRC or ARC. Both have a great ring to it.

He is allowed to get away with being crap at throwing a lineout because he was rewarded for it. The problem with Aus rugby in that regard has been selections at higher honors. Why would he go back and work on that when he still gets to start most weeks for the wallabies. This is the same with Discipline. Rennie spoke a good game about cracking down on this, but still did nothing to strike fear into the players.