The only chance (albeit a very low likelihood) Australia has of winning the World Cup is to be brave and select the best players we have.
Seeing as we have the past history of repetitively selecting and seemingly anointing terrible players like Tom Wright, Porecki, Nic White etc why doesn’t Eddie just start and stick with Carter Gordon, Tate McDermott, Marky Mark, Ritchie Arnold, Frost, McReight etc who actually play with speed and skill. I would just say to these young blokes that your in, we back you, go and play your natural game. Give these guys consistent selection and see how things pan out.

Special mention again for Tom Wright who is the worst wallaby backline player I can remember for the last 30yrs. Rocks or diamonds player who turns out rocks 95% of the time.

Could have titled this article “10 things we learned again about the Wallabies that we already knew”.
1. Wallabies have no depth and have hardly any world class players.
2. Basic skills are lacking especially under any sort of pressure. See point one.
3. Tom Wright is rocks or diamonds. Can’t tackle, can’t pass, can’t catch, is a fast runner and scored a great try. Let’s be honest though, it happens every week in the NRL and should be considered mandatory skills for an international winger. I don’t understand why he keeps getting picked.
4. Noah Lolesio is a club rugby standard player who may develop into a Super Rugby level player in 3-4yrs.
5. Wallabies hookers haven’t worked out how to throw the ball in straight or to a jumper. Seriously, WTF?
6. Ned Hannigan is club rugby. I thought his initial selection under Cheika was a joke and because he was a Waratah. How is he even getting paid to play? Could say the same for many others but Ned is the best example.
7. Jake Gordon’s lack of basic skill is only matched by his lack of mental capacity to make a decent game decision. If one person needs to wear that loss it’s him and his late no arms shoulder charge, seriously, WTF?
8. Tupou is only to be used at 53min mark in every game as an impact player and Nic White needs to play if available compared to all other current 9’s. There are more examples but I’m over writing about them.
9. Michael Hooper needs to play every game he’s available. One of 3 Wallabies that are world class.
10. The Wallabies have simply reverted to the mean. We were essentially an also ran of the rugby world for about 120years. We had a golden age for 14 years in the 90’s to early 2000’s. The group of players 1-15 plus reserves being world class was literally once in a lifetime. We measure the current players against those results and they just simply aren’t as good pretty much in all areas of the game.

Totally agree. All I was thinking as reading this was finally the adults are in charge!

Taking drugs like this is not a victimless crime. The entire production and distribution chain is littered with violence, abuse, death and destruction for impoverished desperate people in 3rd world countries, usually women and children, All this to allow wealthy dickheads in western countries short lived fun.
I don’t care at all how people live their own lives or what they consume but to pretend it’s victimless is morally outrageous.
I know it’s a bit of a partybpooper view but it’s the truth.

Life is also about how you react to things which is the point I’m making that you don’t seem to understand.

Let’s give an example so you can get it: imagine IF cuts Raelene Castle off in traffic in his sweet Lambo and then gives her the bird. Raelene, riding on her Mad Max-esque 3 wheeler motorcycle is incensed. She screams blue murder at IF (who is in the wrong) and chases after him for 6mths yelling all kinds of threats. She calls all her media mates and sponsors telling everyone how bad IF to make sure there is a massive fuss over his behaviour and the story goes global. She finally catches up to him, IF hops out of his sweet Lambo, with 3 lawyers, $2.5mill in cash and an unrepentant attitude. Raelene, seemingly caught off guard, cruises up and gets worried about the ensuing confrontation. She immediately apologises and throws a suitcase with $8mill (or whatever) to IF. He then hi fives all his lawyers hops back in his sweet Lambo and calls the Brisbane broncos to see if they need a winger.
Point is all Raelene had to do (which should have been advised from the start) is pay his contract out, say the situation is untenable and move on. That is why I’m saying they created the situation through their reaction. It’s bad management, that’s why they are getting hammered.

Didn’t say they started it, of course IF did and deserved to be terminated. My point is their handling of the whole thing was a debacle from the start and they created the situation that they found themselves in having to meekly settle. From a moralistic crusade to publicly apologising and paying out some monstrous fee. That is why the media is going at her/ them which is justifiable. You are the one missing the point if you think this was handled well by RA.

Look up the RA media releases 12th April and see that Raelene Castle and Andrew Hore said they intended to fire IF because no contact had been made. Contravenes their own policy which stated they need an independent panel to adjudicate on a breach first. This error is probably why IF actually got money because he could show it wasn’t a fair sacking.

The point that the author seems to miss is that RA created the situation that they found themselves in. From that place last week, yes, it was the best option (settlement) for them to take for all the reasons that were listed.
From Raelene’s initial pre-emptive media release saying that RA intended to fire IF without following RA’s own policy to lastly fronting the media post settlement and almost breaking the settlement terms by discussing/ denying the amount was under $8mill, it’s a management debacle.
The other glaring point is that if an employee gets justifiable fired said employee does not get a single cent from previous employer when bringing wrongful dismissal lawsuits. So IF walking away with anything means that the way that his sacking was handled was completely botched. This is why Journos and the public are hammering RA and Raelene.
Yes RA were right to severe ties with IF the relationship is untenable because of his stubbornness/ unintelligence/ fervour etc so just negotiate a payout and don’t run the virtue signalling media campaign that they tried to orchestrate. They were on there moralistic high horse when they obviously discovered it wasn’t worth the risk/ exposure to continue which is fair enough but that is why we have experienced CEOs and ex big bank CEOs running the joint to stave these problems that should have been seen a long time before we got to the limp wristed settlement.

Pretty simple for any club really, just put in a SM clause (as in complete ban!) and sign him up.
This has been a complete debacle from RA, Raelene and Cameron from day dot. All this BS about not affecting grass roots rugby??? It already has, the game is/ was struggling anyway and this type of saga and money wasting just adds to it. The payout is obviously huge, which means that Folau was wrongfully dismissed because if it the dismissal was justified and lawful he would get nothing. So to pay out a $4mill + damages contract today instead of over 4 years indicates that despite Raelene’s astounding pre-emptive legal analysis is of australian employment law, the real lawyers told her she would lose and badly. As any business owner / investor will tell you to pay out this much money so early in a contract and in one go is financially devastating.
Folau is a misinformed inflammatory figure who the corporate media seems to be obsessed with to generate more click bait and money for themselves. As bad as each other. Stay out of his church and keep him out of your papers/ articles.

I’m an Aussie and used to love watching Rassie play as the big blindside when I was a kid. He is a great man and thinker of the game. I text my childhood friend through the game that Rassie our old hero was masterminding a great victory!! Haha so good watching England get done at their own game. Power rugby when it mattered. It’s got to be a record achievement as first year international coach.

New Zealand lost mate. You don’t deserve to win. Every time some other nation wins something or beats NZ all we ever here is ‘wait til next time’ ‘we’ll smash you next week’ ‘your gonna cop it’ blah blah blah.
South Africa played a great World Cup campaign. New Zealand didn’t and England peaked too early with their grand final last week. It’s the way the comp goes. If you want a true reflection of 4 year dominance to hand out an EPL style trophy of first past the post then I suggest you petition world rugby. In the mean time, we’ll congratulate South Africa as deserved world champions who nailed it when it mattered. Back to your little cloud covered hole.

Thanks mate, a bit of man to man affirmation really lifts the spirits! I’m not much of a social media user but I kind of enjoy seeing who likes a comment or replies. Im going to set up Twitter now! Ha cheers mate.
May the best team win!

To beat the Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks within a 14 day window is highly unlikely. I think England have played their final and the Springboks will win.
If England can start fast and get to 14 point lead early in the first half it will be game over as Springboks won’t be able to reel them in. If South Africa can withstand an early onslaught and keep the first half even they will have more petrol in the tank late in the game.
As an Aussie I sort of want England to win for Eddie Jones as he has clearly developed/ matured as a coach and person. A win would surely prove that Jones is a superior coach to Sir Clive. I could have coached England to the win in 2003 with Jonny and that forward pack. Whereas Eddie has built a masterpiece out of ruins and without many superstars. As I say this though, I’m tempted to punch myself in the nuts for suggesting I’d like to see an England win. These games are always a bit like watching your ex-wife and step son have a fight. Hate them both but someone has to win.
Springboks by 4.

South Africa will win this wkd. England has just played their grand final against All Blacks. Same way All Blacks played their best game against the Irish.
The psychological come down after the semi win will be too much for England. Whereas SA have their one great performance to go. The Semi against Wales was just doing what they had to do to beat the suffocating Welsh.
The probability of beating Wallabies, All Blacks and South Africa in one 14 day period must be incredible low. If England do do it, it will be a monumental achievement.

Dave Rennie has only coached chiefs and Glasgow and had Wayne Smith as a mentor anyway. Jaime Joseph is obviously a good coach but would he want the wallabies and we’ve had a kiwi before.
Laurie Fisher is a forward assistant coach not a head coach. Jim Mackay is the same but for the backs. Eddie Jones is psychopath that structurally damaged the way we played rugby for the last 15 yrs and tried to turn players into robots. He’s just smarter than cheika.
I know the list is bigger but why not give Larkham 2 years and see how he goes? If he’s worse than cheika then you’ve got another 2 years.

The Walllabies should just hire Steve Larkham as coach. He’s a winner, super smart, passionate about Australian rugby and is the polar opposite to Cheika. Get Scott Johnson to oversee as he has all the international experience that Larkham lacks. Let him build the team over time and bring back the speed, skill, smarts and fitness that Australian rugby was known for.
The bigger issues is that the board has to sort themselves and the direction of Australian rugby out separately. It’s not the coaches job.
We’ve tried a kiwi coach and they don’t get the different Australian psychology. Long term focus and less pressure on the coach, more pressure and direction from and on the board.

The Walllabies should just hire Steve Larkham as coach. He’s a winner, super smart, passionate about Australian rugby and is the polar opposite to Cheika. Get Scott Johnson to oversee as he has all the international experience that Larkham lacks. Let him build the team over time and bring back the speed, skill, smarts and fitness that Australian rugby was known for.
The bigger issues is that the board has to sort themselves and the direction of Australian rugby out separately. It’s not the coaches job.
We’ve tried a kiwi coach and they don’t get the different Australian psychology. Long term focus and less pressure on the coach, more pressure and direction from and on the board.

All Blacks were amazing. The offloading and speed of the game was the best rugby I’ve seen played this year. Ireland were terrible, unforced errors, dropped balls, poor attack, poor spacing in defence. This can all be attributed to being exhausted and under immense pressure from NZ…but before we froth on about NZ too much, Ireland did just get not only beaten but outplayed by Japan. So I think they added to the amazing NZ performance. Ireland mistimed their World Cup run and are over the hill has beens. Semi-final next wk between NZ and England is the real World Cup final. Can’t decide who I dislike/ want to lose more!! Haha think I’ll just go for NZ as Eddie Jones and his twisted cranial bones smirking is too hard to take any more of.

The biggest positive to come out of this whole debacle is that Michael Cheika and his bizarre chip on the shoulder will not be let within 100km of any wallaby team ever again.
The worst wallaby coach on record who through arrogance and what must be described as unintelligence has presided over the gradual deterioration of Australian rugby. We actually have really good players available but just they’ve been atrociously coached. Imagine Cheika and Berne sitting around in their meeting coming up with the brilliant ploy to run the ball out of our 22 on every restart, just to catch England napping. They forgot that England has arguably the best defence, postional kicking halves and goal kicker in the world. Well done guys. He actually probably didn’t know though because he thinks analysing opposition is a waste of time. Good riddance. End rant.

The irish/ all blacks game exemplified how good rugby can be and how bad we currently play it. What struck me was how relatively simple both the Irish and all blacks keep it. Just high skill, everything fast pace as well as being patient, relentless well spaced defence. We run endless side to side rugby league 2nd man plays that lead no where. I actually think we have a lot of good players but the mindset and coaching/ preparation/ strategy is abysmal. What else can it be.
I think a better back line is
9. Genia
10. Toomua (if he’d had as many chances as foley
11. Naivalu
12. Kerevi
13. Petaia
14. Folau
15. Beale

The bottom line for the wallabies is that they have an undeniable cultural problem within the team. It’s obvious. Playing crap rugby, getting beaten by other teams playing arguably worse. No ones enjoying themselves. Cheika’s arrogance has created this toxic culture, this is obvious too. I spoke to a relative of Sam Carter just around the time he was being given the standard Cheika treatment of in/out, in/out and then sky rocketed. They said that the wallabies culture was toxic, Cheika had his favourites and treated everyone else with disdain. This was a couple of years ago. Would seem to be a reasonable accurate assessment given what’s before us now.
I can’t believe myself but I’m actually hoping to lose to Italy to end this nightmare.