Well go somewhere else then

You are just showing your ignorance

I agree Brett, the state bias in many posts is crap and does nothing to promote a positive go-forward position.

There is an on field leadership issue and it is not solved by taking a state view. If Hooper is inexperienced he needs help with his role from the coaching staff just like a player needs help from the coaching staff to improve his performance.

Maybe former captains can come in to assist the leadership group by evaluating decisions and providing advice.

I have been going to Wallabies matches since the early sixties, and have endured the downs (too many to mention) and enjoyed the ups which were all the more satisfying because of all the downs. In the long run, this is just another downs to be endured and hopefully the start of another period of success.

Most people on this site have only experienced a short period of time with the Wallabies and think the current situation is the end of the world.

I have also been a Waratahs supporter since the early sixties and the wheel turned there. If you really want to know how I suffer, I am a supporter of the Oakland Raiders in the NFL (worked in the USA quite a while back) and they are currently the worst team in the NFL.

Hang in there Australian fans, the wheel will turn and even if Cheika does not succeed it will come again.

The main point is we need to support the new coaching team and the team itself and give them a chance.

At least Cheika starts off by going straight to Europe and out of this current cess pool. Should get him some time to immediately acquaint himself with the current team, assess strengths and weaknesses without worrying about the ARU management issues.

I agree Red Kev

I pointed out when Phipps was sin binned in the previous match, nobody was instructed to be the halfback. Foley came in a couple of times but there were other times where there was no halfback and the ball was turned over because of it. Ball came out and the Argies came around and pinched it.

Nobody seems to have a strategic head on their shoulders, at least nobody that is in a leadership role.

Having your most experienced player on the wing doesn’t help. When we were at our best we had the leaders (Eales, Gregan and Larkham) at the centre of the action. If Eales was in the thick of things the other two could adjust the strategy and communicate it.

I am a Waratah supporter, but I agree that Hooper was too young to be appointed captain.

The difference between how the Wallabies lost on Saturday and how they won a few years back in Wellington when Ealse kicked a goal to win after the siren is stark all down to a mature team leadership group. What McKenzie and the ARU has not done is work on the development of the leadership group, so when things get tough near the end of matches the Wallabies continued to fail.

McKenzie criticised his players for the last 10 minutes but he was the one that replaced his attacking half with his kicking half and indicated a change of philosophy to the team with that change. Would Phipps have attempted a box kick in that last minute?

McKenzie did not manage this team well. The team showed it has the ability to compete but no ability to manage the pressure of close finishes or changes in the oppositions tactics.

The silliest thing about this article is the perceived need to include a suggested backline. It is irrelevant in this discussion and while I have been critical of many of McKenzie’s selections it is not the reason he should have or did resign. Incidentally, I am a Waratahs supporter but the rise of Kuridrani has completely changed my view on the backline.

I did however yell for McKenzie to be sacked when he replaced Phipps with White. I told my mate, he has brought on his kicking half and indicated he wants to change the approach, that was working to that point, to the rest of the team. I said we will find a way to lose now. Unfortunately I was correct, disappointingly so with the result (that box kick had me screaming) and surprising so with the coach change.

I’ll keep my mouth shut in future.

Hi Scott

Good article again.

I would add one other point…..the kicking game

Wallabies must improve their kicking, and if they can’t must minimise it. The chip kick needs to be almost eliminated. There is a place for it but it must be used wisely. I still can’t understand why a country that has the best practitioners of kicking an out of shape ball in the world, has the poorest kicking game in rugby. Even the NFL has recognised this.

Also, it seems that only Cheika knows how to get the best out of Skelton.

Before anyone responds I want to point out I was using the alcoholic example as an analogy, not implying anything

I am depressed

I don’t know the facts but there is an old saying, where there is smoke there is fire.

Now is the time for real leadership, not just the finding of scapegoats.

Let’s see who provides the real leadership here, but up to this point I haven’t seen anything from anyone.

The first thing is for someone to say we have more of a problem than one player and an administrator, not to deny everything. An alcoholic cannot move forward until they admit they are an alcoholic.

Excellent as usual Scott

At the time I was screaming that we do not pay Folau to chip kick. He must either break the tackle, off-load or recycle. No chip kicks.

Another thing that happened when Phipps was off was that we had no half back and lost possession a couple of times because of it. Foley came in a couple of times but there was no half a couple of times and we lost possession. Turn overs are especially bad when you are a man down.

This team is one of the worst teams as far as retaining possession is concerned. You only score with interceptions and charge downs when you don’t have possession, so they need to place a higher value on retaining the ball.

Or maybe they just love tackling!!

Hi Scott

Fardy made only 4 tackles, missed a tackle, gave away a penalty, zero turnovers and only made 10 metres on 6 carries.

Shouldn’t we be expecting a lot more than that from our number 6 if they are to retain their place in the team?

As less than half the forwards are usually committed to the ruck and maul, if all he was doing was running from one ruck/maul to the next, I still don’t see we are getting much value from him on the filed.

Higginbotham had the same number of runs, but for twice as many meters, an offload and only 3 fewer tackles than Fardy in the period he was on the field.

Also the replacement of Palu makes sense as you need a tackling machine to replace him if you are not getting the required tackling effort from your 4, 5 and 6.

I agree with your proposed changes Scott.

If you look at the combined tackle counts and yards of go forward we got from 4, 5 and 6, we were poorly served. Especially when you compare them to what the All Blacks 4, 5 and 6 delivered for them in both counts.

My only concern with Horwill was that he didn’t register a tackle in the time he was on the field and he gave up a penalty.

I think Fardy needs to go to the NRC to find form.

But only having 3 locks in contention is the biggest worry for the Wallabies. A far bigger concern than the issue of whether Beale should be in or out that seems to be the focus of many commentators

Another thing Melon, Foley made 7 clean tackles on Saturday (equal 3rd for the Wallabies). When have you seen Cooper make 7 tackles against big Bok forwards?

Cooper also makes mistakes. In his good games he makes more plays than mistakes, but in his bad games……..well we’ve all seen his bad games and they are mostly against the All Blacks cause they don’t let him settle.

And another point to provide further comparison, in the All Blacks game the forwards dominated the tackle count with McCaw 12, Thrush 10, Cane 13, Coles 9, Franks 7, Retallick 10. Their 2 5/8s made a total of 4 tackles.

The Wallabies pigs are not doing the hard yards.

Another point I forgot to make is that the player either side of Toomua (Foley and Kuridrani) both made more tackles than he did. So those saying that the backline defence is reliant on Toomua need to be more realistic. But then again Toomua made the same number as Carter and only one less than Simmons.

I get tired of the continual focus on rejigging the backline. Despite everyone in the backline making mistakes the backline operated OK and the Wallabies out-ran the Boks 578 to 235 metres. They also crossed the line 4 times to Boks 1.

I believe the issue is with the forwards and the locks and blindside the main area of concern. In the tackle count Foley and Kuridrani were equal 3rd with 7 tackles each (after Palu and Hooper). Palu made only 2 fewer tackles than Carter, Simmons and Fardy combined so if you are going to drop Palu you need to get a tackling machine in to replace him.

I think that Fardy’s 4 tackles in the match, including a missed tackle, is not enough to warrant him retaining his place in the side.

Carter made 5 and Simmons 6 tackles, and by way of comparison Retallick made 10 for the All Blacks as well as provide go forward in attack. Therein lies the problem with our locks, too few tackles and no go forward. Incidentally Horwill did not register a tackle in his time on the paddock, so I should have added him to the locks tackling stats above.

These defensive issues, where the 5/8 is having to make more tackles than most of the forwards is why we got blown away by the AB’s. It is not so much of a problem with the Boks because they kick and don’t run as much. Even so why is the 5/8 tackling those big Bok forwards and our locks are not?

So maybe we can excuse the backs their mistakes because Foley and Kuridrani were shouldering more of the defensive effort than our pigs were.

So in addition to the stupid penalties, our 4, 5 and 6 are not performing and that is what is holding the wallabies back.

Hey melon

Also what about Foley’s role in the two tries. His long accurate pass to enable Toomua to be one on one in the first. And his loop and link to keep the movement going and create the space for Kuridrani in the second.
His role in both continues to be overlooked.

I have already said some in this conversation.

Foley should be the first choice 5/8, certainly not Toomua. Phipps the same at half.

Foley was the key to both tries.

In the first try, you see a long, accurate and quick pass from the ruck by Phipps to Foley. Foley links with Toomua with another long pass right in the bread basket. 2 long fast passes allows Toomua to be one on one with his defender. If you don’t believe it look where the ruck was and see where Toomua gets the ball. I have no issue with Toomua’s low pass, it was good enough.

In the second, Foley is first receivers and passes to Beale then loops around and takes Folau’s flick pass and passes it to Kuridrani to keep the movement going. Kuridrani was not in a position to take Folau’s pass so the movement would have died without Foley.

Sure Foley made a couple of mistakes, but there few Wallabies that didn’t make mistakes and the conditions were not ideal.

Wallabies got over the try line 4 times to Boks 1. I agree we only got two actual tries, but if we can reduce errors so when we get over the try line 4 times, against a top 3 ranked team, we score 4 tries we should improve our winning percentage. Bok’s never looked like crossing the try line except for that one time. Cut down on our penalties and we win comfortably.

So what is all the doom and gloom. Leave the backs as is, bring Beale on earlier and tell Toomua to stop kicking. Get the execution right and we are OK.

The last try was not scored without Foley and his loop around and double involvement in the movement. It kept the movement going (the link) after Folau was tackled and created the numbers for the try to be scored (the mismatch). That was as fine a piece of 5/8 play as you will see and reminds me of what Mark Ella used to do.

Most of the team made mistakes last night, so all of them could improve, but the ones being criticised (Phipps, Foley and Folau) are also the reason we won. Phipps’ speed of service greatly exceeds all other halfbacks we have at the moment, including Genia.

Toomua it the chief momentum killer in our backline. Look at his horrible kick early in the first test and yesterdays kick over the dead ball line. Both momentum killers and both directly lead to opposition points. He was poor in the second test and was the first one pulled by McKenzie.
You obviously didn’t see Foley remind everyone of Mark Ella in the last try by handling twice in the movement, drifting round to provide the link and the mismatch after being first receiver.
Toomua IS the problem no matter how many times you repeat otherwise

Mike
Good points. I agree that targeting one player is missing the point.

You could have replaced Beale with the best defending back you could find and we still would have lost. I might add would not have scored our 2 tries either.

The problems were with the defensive structures and defence is too important not to be a primary focus of the coaching staff.

I get tired of reading the knee jerk reactions of many who post. Toomua played poorly as well, but many are still saying he is the saviour.

I would move Beale to the wing to replace McCabe and have Foley at 10, but more importantly, as I have said before, engage Nathan Grey as a defence consultant.

Scott, I said on a post on Sunday that I thought defence was the biggest problem.

I believe McKenzie needs to recognise this and maybe draft Nathan Grey into his coaching staff for the remainder of the tests this year.

Grey had to work with Beale in his defensive patterns and still provided the best defensive record in the super 12.

While agreeing that Beale is not the best defender, it cannot all be put on one players shoulders.

When we were at our peak we had a specialist defence coach (Muggleton) and most teams stuggled to score against us. We need a specialist again.

Another thing McKenzie has got wrong is to not have a defence coach. I believe the Wallabies defensive structures were not up to test standard.

He should pull Grey into his staff for the remainder of this years internationals.

Toomua lost me when he kicked the ball away when we were on attack in the first few minutes of the first test and next thing we were defending instead of attacking. He has been a bottleneck in the backline and even McKenzie saw that when Toomua was the first to be replaced.

Phipps brings an up tempo to the play that puts stress on the oppositions defence, Nick White is too slow and kicks too much.

When Phipps and Foley came on the tempo increased and it became a even contest from that point.

Scrum was strong except when Simmons was in the bin and of course when Alexander came on.

After the first McCaw try, why didn’t he bring on Skelton to stop any further 9 man rumbles. While Skelton had the droppies like the others, he did contribute to the stopping of a 9 man rumble when he did come on.

I agree that the coaches selections played a large part in the loss last night. I actually liked the Phipps/Foley/Beale/AAC/Kuridani structure when it came together. It didn’t let in any more tries than the so called more defensive structure but certainly livened up the attack and started asking questions. The AB’s began scrambling in defence where as they were very settled in defence with White and Toomua there.

Still a woeful effort by the Wallabies, ABs were far too good on the night. And I was far too angry with the Wallabies to even start to analyse the refereeing, except, with all the lifting of legs in mauls by just about every team I have seen, why was this one a yellow card? That was the only time the ABs forwards really have the ascendancy.

The biggest issues to address IMO are:
Defence
Key selections
Execution/confidence

Also, why did they keep kicking to the ABs best aerial exponent on kick offs?

I agree

A couple of years ago , and even last year, my son would still go to matches with me (as I would shout him dinner) but I could not get him to stay and watch a Tahs match on TV. This year he is right into it and he shuts down his computer and is sitting next to me even before the game gets underway. He has even brought a mate to the last Brumbies game. He will handle the odd loss, but will drift away again if Tah’s go back to a consistent boring game plan. We both understand different conditions may dictate variations in approach but a focus on ball in hand is a must.