Anyone who has ever coached and takes it seriously looks for patterns. Whether those are based off of players, stats, heights and weights, formats, attack structures or defensive structures, the quantitative approach in a modern setting is the standard.
Firing a coach and bringing a new one in on the eve of a World Cup is not a recognised pattern for success.
Seeing as everyone is firmly on the ‘blame-Eddie-Jones-bandwagon’, which admittedly has been exceptionally easy to jump on, it strikes me as a bit of scapegoating. Maybe this was RA’s plan all along, Jones takes the heat for what they knew was going to most likely happen – a poor campaign.
Wallabies coach Eddie Jones. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
That being said, France, Wales, Ireland and England all are unbeaten at RWC 2023. Scotland is resurgent and giving the bok supporters Darcy/Duhan inspired nightmares and the All Blacks have kicked into gear seemingly after being written off just a few short months ago.
Let’s take a tour of the opposition coaching boxes. Are they the best around?
New Zealand
How short our memories actually are, given that the calls for Ian Foster to step down were blaring 12 months ago. After thrashing Italy and a narrow loss to France, they once again are being talked about as World Cup contenders. The best coach in New Zealand is taking over after the World Cup with a task of rebuilding the All Blacks. Foster is probably not the best, but the players are some of the best, and the structures and systems are of the quality one expects from the All Blacks.
England
Unbeaten though scrappy, they have topped the pool and are guaranteed an entry to the quarterfinals. Yet Steve Borthwick came under heavy fire from coach turned keyboard warrior Clive Woodward just over a month ago, while David Campese stated that “Steve Borthwick, is killing our sport and, in particular, both the Wallabies and England”
What we know from the last round of Eddie Jones criticism is that England has great infrastructure and an even better budget for rugby. Borthwick has proved good at Leicester, but lacks time in the saddle and has had little time to pull off his campaign, which is looking like a bit more of a “smash and grab” campaign than the one Australia conducted.
Steve Borthwick, Head Coach of England. (Photo by Paul Harding/Getty Imag
Wales
The Wales camp is probably more comparable to the Wallaby setup with Warren Gatland recalled in December 2022 after Wales decided to sack Wayne Pivac. Welsh rugby is short of players and has a lack of depth in the critical front row stocks. Added to that was a near player strike and a lot of unhappiness. Its a picture that’s similar to Australia. Yet, they are unbeaten in RWC ‘23, overcame a fiery Fijian team and trounced Australia. Gatland knows the players, has worked with them extensively and has a good balance of experience and youth. Written off before the competition, they have built success off of defense and Gatland too seems to be taking the idea of “smash and grab” quite seriously.
France
To steal an Afrikaans adage, France is a horse of another color. Enough has been said and written about their depth, multiple divisions of rugby, academies, foreign and domestic talent etc etc.
Just consider for a moment though that coach Fabien Galthie only managed to claim one trophy as a coach pre 2020 – the Top 14 with Stade. From 2020 onwards though that picture is very different, but its easy to argue that success has come in large part due to the fact that the French systems are so powerful and well funded.
Ireland
The top seed, rightly so. Their systems had a rework which has borne fruit largely due to the influence of David Nucifora. The win streak continues for Andy Farrell and his charges. Farrell has been at the helm since 2019 and overseen one of the best periods in Irish rugby, currently on a win streak of 16. They have beaten all comers and play some sensational rugby.
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell with the 2023 Six Nations trophy. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Which brings us back to Wallabies.
The clarity and quality of the selections certainly are on the coach. The awful communications with the media, the Japan furore etc… all on the coach. The decision to bring in rugby league coaches is suspect at best and foolish at worst, especially considering that we didn’t see a game plan that was in any way advanced.
In sum Australia didn’t do anything that well, from set piece to open play to defense, as broken down well by The Roar’s Rugby writer Christy Doran.
Teams that have average players can be well coached and win games. Average coaches with a good player pool can win games. If anything, Chile and Uruguay have way less talent and somehow looked better coached than Australia.
What we can’t blame Eddie for is the broken system that is not producing the players and supporters to get to a final.
With the exception of Angus Bell, Rob Valentini and Taniela Tupou – who is fragile, none of the forwards selected would make one of the sides mentioned in the beginning. Would David Porecki, Nick Frost, Richie Arnold, Fraser McReight or Tom Hooper start for Ireland or Wales? Definitely not.
Player quality through participation needs to be fixed, grassroots and schools rugby along with better professional pathways need to be made a focus. Rugby Australia needs to realise they are in a gunfight with AFL and NRL, and have brought along a rubber chicken as their weapon of choice.
That’s not a problem that a national coach with a few months at the desk could solve.
Let’s not let Eddie be the scapegoat of a broken system that desperately needs change.
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
And the Scotland team.. and the Namibian team and the Samoan team. And the all black team and the Tongan team :laughing:
Rohan
Roar Rookie
Matt, good read btw. I agree with you re the structural problems, I just can't let Eddie and Hamish off the hook for taking us backwards since 2022.
Rohan
Roar Rookie
Matt, one player not selected for the Wallabies made the Ireland team.
Jim
Roar Rookie
Thanks mate. I do stand by my comments though. Rugby is not the spectacle it once was. I am in my 50s and played rugby for many years and I can tell you people are turning away. The parameters are too tight, the rules are extreamly pedantic, inconsistent and even great wallabies cannot interpret what's going on half of the time. Almost every game is destroyed by numerous yellow and red cards. To me, Ireland/ SAF was an ok game at best, but by far the best pool game of the tournament. Is it the same spectacle as the NRL or AFL grand finals? I would say not even close... Was it in the 90s and 2000s? I would say most definitely
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
I was with you until "rugby boards move away from the Northern hemisphere controlled rubbish the game has evolved into". Its pedantic at that level because the margins are so close. SA/IRE was a showcase of this not boring, yeah my wife didnt love it like she loved watching the WAL/Fiji game, but she never played rugby so I can live with that, it was entertaining in a different way. To your point of coaches and age rugby- couldnt agree more. I'd add - running to league because thats where everyone is.
Jacko
Roar Rookie
I think if the dedication is there then its never too late Matt. Get the game back in schools and dont stop until its working. Western Sydney is the first place id start and build off that. Just ( re ) start the process and dont give up.
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
Yeah I keep scratching my head on this. On paper its actually a pretty exciting team. Which means its the coaches fault right? The Portugal team has part timers that look well coached and put up a fight. But also, not many players in the Wallabies would make the Welsh, Eng, Ire, AB's sides I think...
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
Someone caught me! Both you and Skippy saw through me and gave me a yellow. Yes, Eddie has made some madcap decisions. RA.. Rubber chicken to a gunfight.
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
All valid. The choice of assistant coaches as I said, was ludicrous. I tried not to bash EJ here. But as I said, a great coach can get an average team to win. This isnt an average team, its pretty good on paper. But the problem is bigger than that.
MattTheContrarian
Roar Rookie
Re-invention or resuscitation? Its an interesting chicken and egg problem right, but I think it boils down to problems that you need to solve - but that are probably too difficult to solve ie: Participation and Optics. Participation especially at schools level. I think is too late to address this. As soon as you have a generation out of play its hard to bring rugby at schools back. Or put differently, league is easier to watch and understand, its been played formally by this generation, the kids will continue to be encouraged not to play rugby. And Optics: league is everywhere. I cant go to my local pub (s), not even the sports bar and watch the world cup. As an aside, on the way back from a rugby match down the coast this year we pub hopped home in regional NSW. The Matildas game was on, the pubs were full of people watching...
Jim
Roar Rookie
Absolutely correct. Glad someone can see this. The Coaching in junior rugby ( atleast in Queensland) is dreadful. Good coaches don't get a look in because those controlling the grass roots don't want to be shown up as completely inept. Any child with talent is often snapped up by rugby league by the age of 15. There are great players in bad teams that don't get selected because the team does not perform. The politics of selection is biased at best. We are left with kids running to rugby league, because their talent is not being appreciated. Too often the big powerful kid with low skill levels or a coaches son will get selected over a truly talented boy. It leaves us with players once they reach manhood with low skills and little speed. The other Elephant in the room, is the poor spectacle rugby has become. Once an unbelievable game is just now a pedantic, stop start boring affair. Compare the rugby league grand final or even the AFL grand final to any world cup rugby game and the rugby games are not even close to the same kind of spectacle. Australian kids see this. Eddie Jones is not to blame. I cannot see a fix for this in Australia. Unless the NZ, Australia and South African rugby boards move away from the Northern hemisphere controlled rubbish the game has evolved into, and start their own commen sense version of the game, then it's doomed here, and I cannot see that happening.
Ankle-tapped Waterboy
Roar Rookie
No, the assumption that RWC 2023 was always going to be a poor campaign goes against everything Hamish and Jones were saying, right up until they started losing really badly and were forced to change gh narrative to save their collective skins. The pathways and structural issues in Australian rugby are real, however they are no worse in 2023 than they were in 2022 when the national squad was there or thereabouts when facing off against World #1,#2, and #3 teams. The Wallabies failures highlight the Head Coach, his Patron, and a systemic issue where professionalism has, after three decades, got rugby to the point where any of half a dozen nations can win the World Cup, and Australian rugby has not kept up. But Australia has not been far off the pace. We have got used to seeing the Wallabies punch above their weight, they've been known for it, no matter how dishevelled things are backstage. Hamish panicked when Rennie did the last of his 2022 experimental squads and it backfired in Italy, ahead of what was likely going to be a "ripen and deepen" approach to a settled national team over 2023. Marinos said "don't intervene, stay the course" and he got ousted. The rest is a vigorous jonesing and history, where Jones took the "punch above your weight" and reversed it to "throw no punches against Tier 1 sides". Do not ascribe to systemic shortcomings the individual failures by powerful people.
Gary
Roar Rookie
And yet didn’t the Fuji coach cut his teeth here in Oz ? Isn’t that interesting?
KTinHK
Roar Pro
Sounds a bit like me: 10 years ago I would have written it. Now…I just can’t be bothered.
JD Kiwi
Roar Rookie
Bang on Jacko!
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
Well Eddie has described himself as the fall guy ..But thats a copout . Sure the system is not great and can do with an overhaul. But on paper the Wallabies team doesnt look bad at all. It certainly is not the sum of of its parts with players uncertain of their roles in an uncertain and disjointed game plan . That goes to coaching ...period ..Most countries with possibly only two exceptions , New Zealand and Ireland are not maximizing available talent . That however is a separate discussion and not a reason to excuse Jones incompetency. Right now Hooper and Cooper probably quite relieved they were shunned .
PC
Roar Rookie
The wallabies have been the focus for so long grassroots suffered, and suffered badly. No decent Coach training to improve our stock with the players we have. You could say Eddie planned this from the start JUST to throw it back into the faces of the states who have been resisting change for so damn long. Nucifora tried here, and was fobbed off ,look what he's done for Ireland. Anyone with something different has been ignored. Meaning ego's have been in the way of any productive change for the game. Suffering Fans, especially those who paid to go and watch this world cup deserve something, because Eddie hasn't been upfront with his actual intentions. The game will have more than a few move over to league ... for good.
Rohan
Roar Rookie
Matt, you've set up a false dichotomy. The system is in trouble, but Eddie is a has been and a failure. His behaviour since being appointed has been erratic, disingenuous, confrontational, belligerent and disrespectful. He's like an old uncle at a barbeque - loud, obvious, obsolete and unbearable. His selections, tactics and strategy have been found wanting. I can and do blame Eddie for this abysmal RWC campaign. With Rennie, we would likely have beat either or both Fiji and Wales. Eddie should bugger off to Japan. If he and Hamish and Phil were all on fire, I wouldn't piss on them to put them out. I'd be looking for a can of petrol to finish off the job properly.
K.F.T.D.
Roar Rookie
Thanks for your confidence. I have a couple of science degrees , but my journalistic capacity is lacking. A good friend whose opinion I respect, blurted the league takeover thing out to me this year. I initially rejected the idea, but the more I mulled over without prejudice, the more I could see some virtue in the idea. Really we are talking about some form of merger. When I played for Wasps in 1980, our fly half who was a ‘Punk’ used to walk through the clubhouse looking like a purple parrot, the old club members in tweed and ties would be aghast “ Never, never have I ever seen such a thing, disgusting, disgraceful ,my god, etc”, tut, tut and a puff on a cigar. It used to take this guy 15 minutes removing all the earrings and razor blades he was wearing. But he could play rugby. The old and the new, the mere thought of a merger would cause a few heart attacks. It used to be amateur and professional, not now. Besides thinking seriously hurts my brain.
KTinHK
Roar Pro
You need to write the article.