Roar Rookie
Joined April 2019
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Former Penrith Emus fourth grader.
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A few years ago I was a social worker in western Sydney and I ran an anger management class at Dunheved High School near…
Waratahs fans left Bankwest Stadium last week in a stream of downcast faces. The Waratahs had fallen to their third consecutive defeat against last…
A nation of rugby fans go to bed tonight with a sense of tragedy in their gut. It was only last Saturday that Israel…
Yeah thats pretty impressive .
COMMENT: Australian rugby is a depressing picture - the RA board must be axed and the constitution changed
It’s not definite evidence of causation, it is definite evidence of ineffectuality. But how many year until its reasonable to assume causation? Picking o/s players has been around for 8 years now and the law has been relaxed increasingly over that period. Results have gotten increasingly worse over that same period culminating in 2023 when the most ever o/s players were selected including the Captain and it was the Wallabies worst year, probably ever.
8 years is a fair amount of time, I would say 10 years is plenty.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Maybe that is the problem, if they are going to select from o/s they need to let better players play o/s. Right now there isn’t any o/s demanding selection.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
I think if the context is what matters then we can conclude that picking o/s players isn’t what matter. We can’t keep acting like it will save Aus Rugby. It hasn’t made any difference yet and I can’t think of any o/s players who will save us this year either.
it is a false dawn.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Ok so the Ireland game shouldn’t count because the o/s players didn’t get enough minutes? Let’s look at the games when they had the most minutes. The maximum number of overseas players ever chosen in a Wallabies team is 5, this has happened 4 times, all 4 games were lost. I mean surely that is persuasive?
2023 Roar articles – “to win the Wallabies need to select o/s players”
Rugby Australia – “ok, the Wallabies can select anyone, let’s make almost a 1/4 of the game day squad o/s players”
Wallabies lose all 4 games..
2024 Roar articles- “to win the Wallabies need to select o/s players”
I mean come one? You can see how unconvincing that is?
Thing is we agree. You are saying the stats don’t help because there were other “key influences”. I agree. That is kind of my point exactly, the amount of o/s players isn’t the factor that determines the wins. Selecting o/s is not having any significant influence on the result. So when someone says picking more o/s will bring the Wallabies to the “big boys table” it’s very hard to agree. It’s not a big factor. It’s already happening anyway, has been for years.
Also Bernard Foley, Michael Hooper and Will Skelton played in that Ireland game.
Much more than 3.17% of the minutes.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
The John Eales medal is a worthwhile point but cherry-picked example is not as strong as a 4 year analysis of multiple player’s results. It amounts to “one time in 2021 it seemed to work so we can conclude that it always works” it requires turning a blind eye to all the times it didn’t. That’s the point of statistical analysis – to ensure you don’t just pick out the data you want.
I mean in 2022 Quade Cooper led the Wallabies to a deficit against Argentina which was overcome with Reece Hodge at fly half. But Coopers overall record as an o/s pick is stronger evidence than that one instance.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
You are most welcome to present any stats or even any kind of evidence at all which point to a different conclusion.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
I’m counting every game a player from overseas is involved. Again I’m not arguing that picking Skelton is causing the Wallabies to lose games. But his 8% win record confirms he isn’t making them win them.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
There is proof and there there is the most reasonable inference. What is the most reasonable inference from the win/loss records? You mention Will Skelton, Will Skelton has won 1 game from 12. Maybe you can argue that it would have been worse without him, maybe without him we would have lost to Georgia, maybe we would have been thrashed by Ireland and Italy and Argentina rather than just beaten. It’s possible that Will Skelton made things better but that argument relies on speculation, it relies on finding excuses to cancel out the 11 losses. It’s desperate and unlikely.
The much more reasonable inference is that his selection has not improved the Wallabies in any significant way. 1 from 12 is an 8.3% win rate. I only did first year stats but I’m pretty sure thats bad.
The headline for this article is “Rugby Australia should look to Rassie’s ‘Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys’ table” so far the policy has relegated us to the card table setup for the kids you want to keep out of the way.
Also, once you work in quality of opposition it makes things worse for the o/s players. They picked up wins against Japan, Georgia and Portugal that skew the results in their favour. The domestic teams never played such weak opposition.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Another quick sum
2020-2023
Games with no o/s players – 4 wins, 3 draws, 5 losses – (33% win rate and 3 draws, lost 41% of games)
Games with o/s players – 11 wins, 22 losses – (33% – includes wins against Japan, Portugal and Georgia, no draws, lost 66.6% of games)
Again, other factors were involved. One of them was named Eddie. But it is not evidence of o/s players making positive difference.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
No, I think I have said what I’m trying to argue a few times. That selecting o/s players is having no significant positive effect on the Wallabies. That much is indisputable and demonstrated by the stats.
The stats also suggest that picking o/s players may be making the Wallabies a little worse, but there are other factors involved there so one cant draw a firm conclusion in that instance.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
2021 spiring tour, 3 games – 0/3 with o/s players.
2022 spiring tour 5 games – 1/3 with o/s players, 1/1 with domestic only.
The stats clearly do not suggest any notable improvement. We can have an article about this every few weeks and picking o/s players can be heralded as the saviour of Australian Rugby but the players we have chosen so far have not saved Rugby.
Plainly the overall win percentage is almost always better than the win percentage when the listed o/s players were selected. There has to be some games that boosted the overall percentage and they cannot have been the ones the o/s players lost.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
I am only attempting to show that in the last 4 years selecting 0/S players has not increased wins. I can’t measure speculation only what has happened. Rennie’s overall record was 38%, his record with Skelton in the team was 0%. His record with Foley at fly half was 20%. It only improved with Cooper and Kerevi who won those 5 home games (none against NZ).
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Yeah I haven’t given evidence of that. I’ve given evidence that overseas players don’t increase wins. SO why?
It wonder if the way players are released makes it too difficult. The Japan based guys play the domestic tests and the NH guys play the spring tour. They come and go too much. It might be difficult to teach systems to o/s players only to have them drop out and have to teach new o/s players, is that limiting the teams opportunity to build? Might it be better to give a less heralded domestic player a whole year to improve than a sugar hit from an o/s star.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
2023 was easily his worst year.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
You can do those stats if you like. I chose the most recent 4 years when laws were loosest. 4 years is signifiant enough.
Again you are arguing that o/s players only win when Wallabies are strong, are o/s not meant to MAKE the Wallabies strong?
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
No i don’t think they were the key to the losses. Despite his horrendous record I still think Will Skelton was useful. But it does show that over the last 4 years picking o/s does not increase wins. Maybe a bigger sample is needed but 4 years isn’t nothing.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
I have no evidence that a domestic player would have done better but I do have evidence that an o/s player didn’t improve things.
Also the coach is not a variable. All players had the same coach. To say the results would be better with a better coach is right. But it’s arguing that the coach is way more significant than picking o/s players, really its arguing that picking o/s has a negligible influence. Which I would agree with.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
I’ll take my real stats above your hypothetical explanation from a mythical stats guy.
Are you arguing picking overseas players only works when the team isn’t struggling? Surely that would mean theres no need to pick overseas players?
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Koriebete is a good example, 5 from 19 = 26% when picked from overseas. His win record when picked from Australia is better.
Domestic players didn’t have a great record either but the assertion is that o/s would have a better one. So far they do not.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Even so, over the last 4 years it hasn’t proven successful.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
A quick count suggests it has driven results down. Foley – 1 from 5, Beale – 0 from 3, Skelton – 1 from 12, Ritchie Arnold – 2 from 9, Cooper – 5 from 9, Kerevi – 7 from 16, Latu – 0 from 2, Koriebete 5 from 19.
Only Cooper has won more than he lost and 6 of the 8 players have a win percentage that is lower than the Wallabies overall win percentage.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
There is likely an error or two here but a quick count produces these results for Wallabies selected from overseas.
Foley – 1 from 5
Beale – 0 from 3
Skelton – 1 from 12
Ritchie Arnold – 2 from 9
Cooper – 5 from 9
Kerevi – 7 from 16
Latu – 0 from 2
This suggests that picking players from overseas isn’t helping. Indeed overall, it is producing below average results.
Scrap the Giteau Law: Rugby Australia should look to Rassie's 'Boks RWC recipe if it wants to re-join the big boys' table
Lighten Up. Fatty has earned the right to tell a joke. World doesn’t need people to take themselves more seriously.
Viewers need more of Paul the analyst, less of Fatty the class clown's cringeworthy commentating
RA should be giving no money to the Rebels at all. Melbourne is an AFL town, not enough people care about or play rugby to sustain a professional team. The NRL invests in 1 team in an AFL state and 15 in NSW/QLD, that’s a sustainable ratio.
BUT if these new investors are willing to pay for the team, why not let them do it? They have a plan and it’s crazy enough to work. If they give up in a couple of years, cull the Rebels then.
UPDATE: RA say they were blindsided over Rebels' finances, reject private consortium claim as administrator backs club's survival