There was not (nor is now) anything humble or inward looking about Graeme Henry. He is every bit as arrogant and self-assured as Eddie Jones. After losing the World Cup Henry still had a massive amount of political power within the NZRFU, he basically went to them and said “We’re all in this together. If you spin the tale that the coaching staff need continuity to be able to succeed, as we’ve tried changing coaches every time and haven’t gotten anywhere in 20 years, then at least we’ll all hold onto our jobs for 4 more years. Otherwise you are all out on your asses too.” That is exactly what the board did and Henry was able to coach them through to the next World Cup. The fact of the matter is if you give any good coach the All Blacks for eight years and two World Cups you can virtually guarantee that they will win one. Laurie Mains or John Hart, given four more years both of them would have won the World Cup too, guaranteed. The continuity theme however is given the lie when you look at Steve Hansen. He won the world cup first time out but then duffed it badly, getting smashed by England in the semi-final. The All Blacks looked stale and clueless in that game. The Springboks went on to roll over England with barely a hitch in their stride. Maybe the rule in New Zealand should be that if you win the World Cup on your first try you should be moved on. However, I think Eddie has talked too much rubbish, broke into many promises and shown too much disrespect and arrogance towards the fans and the media to continue in his role. Historically his teams have performed well in the first couple of years before tanking. If his team is already tanking in the first eight months then I don’t think there is any upside in keeping Eddie on. Find another Australian coach give him a two-year contract and if things are on an upward climb extend it to the end of the World Cup and if the Wallabies are still on an upward trajectory despite losing give him another two years. If the Wallabies are still tracking well and not going stale then let him take them to the next World Cup. None of this guaranteed five year contract stuff that is going on at the moment. You’ll still be able to lure the best Australian coaches if you outline the plan like that.

Why can’t you pick one of each type, develop them both and then vary your game based on the opposition even during a game?

ROLES not rolls (totally different meanings).

What a load of rubbish. It’s only when playing the best that players can see what works and what doesn’t. For example if a talented flyhalf spends half the year playing club rugby he’ll start thinking that when he runs out of ideas he can just chip annd regather because at club level it works 75% of the time. In reality when he comes up against talented opposition he’ll find it only works 18% of the time. In fact statistics show that even a player as talented as Beauden Barrett at international level has something like -15m gained if you look at where he turns over possession by kicking it away and where the All Blacks regain possession. So I categorically disagree with your assertion that spending more time playing club rugby will improve an international class players skills. It will give them a false sense of confidence in their skills and allow them to get away with being sloppy.

Not taking a dig at either one of you but just because English is your first language doesn’t mean you’re good at it. In fact school results show that immigrants generally form the top 20% of English subject students. Based on the number of people on this forum who don’t know the difference between your/you’re, their/there/they’re, loose/lose & defiantly/definitely I’d say the vast majority are Australians who have English as their first language. Realistically, the only immigrants interested in rugby would be from the UK or New Zealand and they have English as their first language too. So you should probably be assuming that someone who’s comprehension is low has in fact English as a first language and just muddled their way through school. For example see Tom Jones’s comment below.

I just watched RugbyHeaven and Tim Horan commented that some fans were leaving the Wales debacle with 25 minutes to go. Andrew Mehrtens expressed his view that fans should stay to the end no matter what. He likened them to rats leaving a sinking ship.
I’ve liked most things that Mehrts has said in the past but I found that pretty offensive.
My kids get unconditional love not some millionaire coach who thinks he’s the messiah or a bunch of well played professional players who can’t consistently do the baiscs right.
When it gets too painful to watch you are 100% entitled to show your disenchantment with your feet.

Non-Australians shouldn’t try coaching in Australia, the environment is too toxic. They should learn from history how badly foreign coaches have been treated compared to the easy ride that Austrlalians get. Leave Australian teams to be coached by whatever resources Australia can scrape up.

“The end is neigh.” What do horses have to do with it?

Aussies buckled under RFU pressure plain and simple. Don’t try to hold them up as paragons of society. Look at the results, they let him off when they shouldn’t have. If It looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then…

“Do you think it’s just a coincidence the game is also referred to as tight and loose though?”
😂
so TWAS you are suggesting that the tighthead prop should be playing right into the rucks while the loosehead prop is more of a link man standing wide of the rucks? Because of course it has very little to do with how they pack down in the scrum.

… And is discharged without conviction. 👎 👎 👎

“SEVU REECE was accused of domestic battery and found not guilty but lost his contract with guess where ?”
Actually he wasn’t found not guilty, he was discharged without conviction. That’s a whole different thing.
It means he pleaded guilty to battering his partner but as a conviction would mean that he would not be able to get a contract as a rugby player overseas, or even in a lot of cases not be granted a visa, a conviction was not recorded.
That’s a sweet deal that the New Zealand justice system gives to rugby players who have potential. Normal Joe’s get convicted.

“Nathan has proven himself to be a great young coach and he’s one that we didn’t want to lose out of the system,” said Johnson.
I wonder if Johnson was able to say this with a straight face? Let’s be honest Nathan Gray is someone that we would be quite happy to lose out of the system.
Wouldn’t it be great if he got a role as defensive coach of the Irish?

👎 Nathan Grey was NEVER a great defence coach.

I fear for any opponent taking on New Zealand, they wee absolutely superb.

It wasn’t really a pissing contest but I appreciate the fact that you obviously have inside information about their more private activities and abilities.

Owens spent the last sixty minutes of the game carrying the Irish so that it would look like a good contest.
He also loved being in the limelight, characterised by the endless replays that he asked for every time the all Blacks scored. Trying to find some way of not giving the try so that everyone could say how eagle eyed and astute he is.
Normally I think he is a fantastic referee but he put in a pretty bad performance last night.

The all Blacks are not unique in giving away penalties to prevent tries in their own twenty-two. The English, the Irish, the Welsh, the South Africans and the Australians all do it.
So why do you make such a big song and dance about it when the all Blacks to it?

I don’t think they were “putting crap on the Haka”. For one thing it wasn’t the Irish players who weren’t “showing respect” which is what the All Blacks were looking at.
If the crowd were singing their hearts out I don’t think anybody could take offence at that.
These stupid comments about “putting crap on the Haka” just show that you don’t understand the All Blacks or even Kiwi mentality (despite probably having grown up in New Zealand).
The reason the All Blacks played so hard is because they really did respect the Irish side. The fact that they did the Kapa O Pango haka shows that as they only do that for opponents that they really respect.

He also spent ages going through endless replays of all the all Blacks tries trying to find some way to not award them.
He spent more time looking at stuff on the screen than Ben Skeen ever did in any of his TMO games.
In contrast he didn’t go over the Irish tries in minute detail.
He let the Irish slow down the game as much as they wanted to and was very sympathetic to their cause.
He’s normally been a very good referee but yesterday was one of his poorest games. He shouldn’t be progressing to the semis.

No. He spent too much time enjoying the limelight and policing the all Blacks and not the Irish so that the game would be more of a contest and everyone would be raving about how he allowed the game to flow.
He is normally a very good referee but he does enjoy being the centre of attention.

Owens had a really poor game. He was so focused on allowing a “flowing contest” that he stopped refereeing the Irish because otherwise they would have been absolutely massacred.
The fact that he panelized the All Blacks so often (possibly twice as much as the Irish) shows the reality of the situation.
The neck roll by the Irish player should have been a yellow card but he just reluctantly only gave a penalty when it was brought to his attention by either by one of the the touch judges or the TMO.
There were so many times that the Irish were off side on defence but all he had eyes for was keeping the All Blacks on side.
Matt Todd should never have received a yellow card, even a penalty would have been too much as he wasn’t offside & didn’t tackle the player but he gave a penalty try because he didn’t want the Irish to lose heart.
Owen should definitely not be reffing one of the semifinals of finals because he spent way too much time in the spotlight.
In contrast I haven’t seen anybody talking about the referee in the Wallabies versus England game. Normally every second poster on this forum would have been moaning about and slagging off the referee. That means the referee did his job really well.

Maybe he’s had all his attention focused on Jocelyn?

Eddie Jones, and Jamie Joseph after him, have managed to tap into the Japanese work ethic with their players.
It is all about knowing what you have to do and doing it really well.
It is about understanding that you are just a part of a greater whole.
It is about controlling your ego and eagerness for the good of the team.
It is about trusting the guy next to you to do his job, and doing yours to reward his trust of you.
It is about having faith that you have a good process and if you follow it you will have a good outcome.
It is about having a plan to meet each contingency in the game and imparting this to all the players.
This is the reason that Japan has been so economically successful since World War II.
Now the coaches have managed to define the skill set and abilities for each role and recruit players who can meet these requirements.
Now the players have the right tools (mentally) to do their job and they have been practising it studiously for the last four years.
This sort of attention to detail and focus on doing your job as well as you can has not been a part of the Wallabies DNA for a long time now.
I suspect that Australian players (aside from Pocock, Nick White, CLL, Hodge and DHP) would rebel against any coach that tried to impose this sort of discipline on them.

Foster did nothing with the Chiefs squad for the five odd years he had them and then Dave Rennie came along and won the tournament with them within two years.
Hanson is pushing for Foster to be the next coach so if the all Blacks win the World Cup he is probably in with a good chance. If they lose to Ireland I suspect he’s dog tucker.

Wasn’t he the referee for the Scotland versus Japan game?
I think he actually did a fantastic job in that game. Communicated well to both parties and didn’t go over the top in penalising high or late tackles.