Are these green shoots or weeds in Eddie's garden?

My wife and I are recently married. We just bought our first house. We arbitrarily divided up the household jobs. I’ve ended up with the gardening. I do not have a green thumb. I muster up the energy to do my bit each weekend.

I work hard to put good soil foundations in, fertiliser, pesticide etc. I wait a few weeks and see green shoots come through. I convince myself I could get into this. However almost inevitably they are snuffed out by something evil – pests, weeds, weather, heavy rain, no rain. The disappointment eventually fades and I convince myself next time will be different. It never is. It’s the hope that kills me.

My relationship to gardening is analogous to my relationship with Australian rugby. Australian rugby desperately need wins. Eddie Jones has brought so much hype and fervour to the rescue job. The script writers were preparing the fairy-tale comeback storyline. I’m sure there was a phone call to Amazon Prime for a docuseries as we prepared for our RWC “Smash and Grab”. Sadly, the much anticipated opening night at a sold-out Loftus was a fizzer.

Selections
It’s hardly surprising that a team in their first match under new management comprised of limited cohesion was soundly beaten in a place where they’ve enjoyed limited success. Some older players and players returning from injury understandably struggled at altitude.

Eddie Jones believes in Ben Darwin’s ‘cohesion theory” yet he scoured the world to assemble this team. He picked players in key positions that haven’t played together and lack any semblance of cohesion. The locks, the 9/10, the 10/12 and the 12/13 combinations were all foreign unto themselves.

He is trying to rapidly establish cohesion for this RWC. However most fair judges don’t consider Australia a realistic chance at this RWC. Some of these overseas-based older selections are no realistic chance of continuing on past this RWC campaign: Quade Cooper (35), Richie Arnold (33). Would Australia not be better off investing in youth and establishing those relationships now?

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Eddie picked Reece Hodge at 12. He’s hardly played at 12 this year. Furthermore he is overseas-bound next year. Similarly his replacement, Samu Kerevi, is also not a long term prospect. Australia will have to start again with cohesion building next year in the key 10/12 and 12/13 channel.

I’m concerned about some of EJ’s gut feel sections. Rugby World Cups are often won by fine margins. Mistakes at the international level are often punished. Consistency is key. Tom Wright has done some brilliant things for the Brumbies but he is also the culprit of some howlers. Suliasi Vunivalu was a controversial captain’s call selection and his error-riddled performance overnight only underscored those issues.

I accept that this team should be dispensed after one performance alone however I wonder how much rope do they deserve?

Discipline
The Wallabies were outplayed and would have lost regardless of who officiated the match. The penalty count was 13-3 in South Africa’s favour. Australia received two yellow cards which were associated with penalty tries. Eddie Jones had a referee at training providing real-time feedback in an effort to curb our penalty count. Have the Wallabies not done enough at training or has Ben O’Keeffe and his team unjustly crucified Australian rugby again? I think it’s time referees attended post match press conferences to provide their side of the story.

There is a clear mandate to speed up the game so lets dispense with the TMO conferences. I’m happy for them to defer to the TMO but once that occurs, the decision making should be left to the TMO. It’s strange when referees refer to the TMO and then lead the review process whilst watching a big screen.

Eddie
We’ve seen a lot of the charismatic Eddie but now that matches have commenced, I suspect we will see a different, more intense persona. We saw the sharp edge of Eddie in the press conference when he called the South African journalist a “smart arse”.

Eddie has a fractious relationship with the media and I worry this potentially internecine relationship could undo a lot of the goodwill he has built in the first few months on the job. This aggressive attitude is usually forgiven with wins but will wear thin over five years without them. Eddie reassures us that he is a softer touch now. To maintain his level headedness, perhaps he needs to take up a new hobby like gardening?