I think Brett was saying similar lines. Walker was just a name picked out of the blue. Very hard to compare players – no two are ever really the same but I also think there’s similarities between Banks and Walker.

Nice to see an article about rugby on this site. I chimed in on ‘the other matter’ yesterday and now feel guilty for just giving that fire more oxygen. So I’m staying away from it now.

I made a comment against one of Brett’s articles a few weeks ago that the quality of play (and player) wasn’t what it was 20 years ago. I cringe just typing that previous sentence because I sound like such a old curmudgeon. Brett challenged me and told me to look again at the running lines of Banks compared to Andrew Walker. I have to admit, Brett is right – there are some quality players for the Brumbies at the moment – forwards and backs. Banks reminds me of a young Latham actually.

My comment about the drop in quality does however apply more broadly across Australian teams. There is some abysmal rugby being played by the other Australian teams and so, you’re right – it should be almost all Brumbies in the Wallabies if there’s any common sense in selections.

Can someone please start a Go Fund Me to pay lawyers to sue Go Fund Me for Izzy’s right to start a Go Fund Me to pay lawyers to sue RA for his right say whatever he likes as publicly as he likes?

Word for word I could have written this comment myself. Couldn’t agree more. One thing I would add…

@Brett: Do you really think the rugby is more attractive than it was 15-20 years ago? Surely back in the day watching the likes of Roff, Larkham, Smith, Andrew Walker and a host of others was more entertaining. I don’t think it’s just a lesser atmosphere thing with a smaller crowd these days – I actually think the skills levels, moves, etc. are worse than they were.

As uglykiwi says, the investment in our young, future rugby players should have been made years ago when we were on top and had a bit of money for it. I can’t see the way back now.

Haven’t been on here for a while but bored, saw this story and thought why not.

I can’t believe the blow-up around this. Seems pretty simple and clear-cut to me. If you sign a contract that includes clauses around how you’ll behave (whether at work or outside) then you have to abide by the contract. Breach it once and you get a warning. Breach a 2nd time – and show now remorse at this fact – and what is an employer supposed to do?

The fact it happens to be a religious comment is neither here nor there. And the fact Alan Jones is defending this stuff is final, definitive proof that we all fell into the upside down at some point in the last few years and nobody noticed.

Anyway, back into my cave…

Can’t help but agree with everything in this article.

Couldn’t. Run. A bath.

The fact that whoever was selector at the time thought Gregan was a better scrumhalf than Whitaker is COMPLETELY irrelevant as to whether Gregan would make a good selector. Whether that selector was right or wrong is even less relevant.

The question should be: What ARE the qualifications you’d want to look for in a selector? I would have thought an ex-coach would have at least some claim to credentials on this. They, after all, have selected players for positions in the past. But there’s probably a lot of coaches who are good selectors but not great coaches (for other reasons).

There are a bunch of other qualities I’d want in the Job Description for the selector but I won’t bore people with my thoughts on this.

Always

Be

Closing

I reckon he’d just draw a face on the wall. Point to it with his golf club. And walk out.

Yeah, not that he’s got much to do with RA any more but interpretation of this comment by O’Neill is key: “The health and wellbeing of Australian rugby relies inevitably and conclusively on the success of the Wallabies. The current state of the Wallabies’ performance, and therefore Australian rugby, needs urgent repair on and off the field”. That’s very much a position statement I think you’d hear from current RA administrators.

My view on this is that the statement may be true… but the Wallabies are like the flower on the top of the tree. It might be what everyone comes to look at… but the flower only survives if the tree survives which means good soil, nutrients, etc.

For too long it’s seemed like RA has put a bubble around the flower and vacuum-sealed it in a desperate attempt to keep it preserved. The tree underneath has wilted away, roots shrinking, leaves falling off but it’s seems like none of that is important to RA because they’re focused on the flower.

Geoff, yep, unfortunately that was my last sentence and what everyone has picked up on but whether our coaches need a stint overseas wasn’t my main point. My main point is: Who is the last great rugby coach Australia has developed?

We’ve heard recently calls from some to bring back Dwyer or Jones or McQueen on consulting basis or whatever. That goes to show we’re stretching back a LOOOONG way to find people we consider decent coaches.

If our flow of talented rugby player players has slowed to a trickle, our flow of talented rugby coaches seems to have dried up completely. The later of course has a massive impact on the former.

Key sentence: “But probably the key aspect is coaching. We should never underestimate how critical the depth and quality of coaching is to New Zealand’s success”.

THE key aspect.

Unless we have a production line that’s producing good coaches (as well as good players), we’re failing. Look at who is being most mentioned as options to replace Cheika. White and Wessels.

Even our “home grown coaching talent” all seem to have to do stints overseas to be considered serious candidates.

That may well be the case. But maybe he also said “Look, I don’t want this to become a media circus” and got cold feet when he saw what was happening. Who knows? Regardless, nobody here can envisage a scenario that exists where this isn’t anything other than a total botch.

Yeah, something isn’t right here.

If RA were just worried about appearances, they would have been FAR better off just coming out and saying they are keeping all options available and looking to the future – even post World Cup. It looks FAR worse to just cancel the meeting.

If RA were threatened by Cheika then surely they would have told him the same thing – i.e. said “you can’t tell us who we can and can’t talk to”.

If Cheika threatened to walk immediately unless they publicly cancelled the meeting, they’d have been better off accepting this outcome than be bullied into cancelling.

The only way this seems to make and sense to me is if WHITE said it’s off. And that would be an understandable stance for him to take. After all, who’d want to join this farce at the moment? If White said he didn’t want to meet any more then MAYBE RA might announce the meeting was cancelled and do this in a way to try to save face a bit?

I dunno. Something ain’t right.

I wonder if there’s a few that will read the headline and not the article and jump on you for (per the headline) seemingly defending Chieka.

Fionn put it nicely as “Removing Cheika, while not sufficient to fix Australian rugby, is necessary to fix Australian rugby”. In other words, just because replacing Cheika by itself may have very limited impact, the fact we aren’t fixing ALL the problems shouldn’t stop us fixing one of them.

The danger is going to be in people that this replacing Cheika WILL fix all the problems. And thinking no further steps need to be taken. If replacing the coach is all that’s done it will be nothing more than a very temporary (possible) uplift.

Did I read something about RA withdrawing funding for schoolboys rugby? This is the sort of thing we’re going to see now. When a body is in mortal danger, it will sacrifice extremities to keep the core going for as long as possible. It’s been clear for ages that RA sees the Wallabies as its core. They will pay ridiculous $s to keep perceived ‘core’ players and sacrifice everything else. Very short-term thinking.

Thanks Nick. Another excellent article.

Someone posted a link to this article on here the other day. Can’t find or remember who so sorry to whoever it was. https://www.rugbypass.com/news/analysis-the-wallabies-dont-seem-to-learn-from-their-mistakes

Whilst analysis pieces like these are awesome, the sad truth is that you DON’T need to have the excellent analytical powers of someone like Mr. Bishop to see the problems. When even us mugs can see time and again that this isn’t working, I cannot fathom why those in the coaching staff continue to double-down on the policies they’ve pursued. 10/10 for sheer bloody mindedness and commitment. Minus several 100 for common sense.

The persistence shown by so many bloggers to continue coming back to sites like this and repeat the same warnings and complaints in different words over and over again is testament to how ‘sticky’ many rugby fans are and their passion for the game.

The fact that even such rusted-on fans are turning away is testament to how badly rugby is being administered in this country at the moment.

I’m over it to be honest. For over a decade some of us have been pointing at the hole in the hull and trying to alert the captain that the ship is sinking. We’re continually told to ‘have faith’ and ‘belief’ and ‘show support’ and not be naysayers. And keep forking out our money of course.

“But you know, the game hasn’t’t deteriorated enough. These people running the show are impervious to their incompetence.”

Sadly, I 100% agree with this. You wonder just how far things have got to fall before we hit the bottom and see some sort of bounce – some sort of radical change to try to take a different direction. How low will we drop in the rankings? How much do audience numbers have to drop? How long can we operate like this financially? You’ve almost got to admire the sheer bloody-mindedness. Almost.

Yes, combinations and chemistry takes time to develop.

What else takes time to develop is the ‘feel’ of playing a particular position. Shunting a 10 over into 12 and hoping he does well – despite having very rarely played there (and when he has played there, played with totally different players around him) – is nuts. Similarly moving a guy who has played 12 for yonks into 10.

It’s saying “you’re not playing that well in the position you’re used to – I’m going to solve that problem by putting you into a position you’re even less comfortable with”. Crazy.

Not saying players can never change position. They can – it just needs some method. Like, for instance, trialling them there at lower levels first as a late sub in a game that’s already won, then a whole half, then starting, give some time to make it ‘stick’,…

Yeah, I’m going to chip in for a change and join the chorus: This is truly bizarre and you couldn’t do much worse if you just threw all the backline options in a hat, drew them out and assigned them in order.

I can’t fathom the thinking here. Toomua at 10 says seems to say he’d had enough of Foley. But then he selects him out of position at 12. How’s he going to play any better from there?!? Picking a youngster out of position on the wing seems to say we’re just throwing everyone in there and seeing who shines. But then AAC on the other wing? He’s not going to be bringing some wise old game smarts to the table from out there.

Totally bizarre. I’m tempted to tune in just to see how it goes.

Nice video. For reference Matt O’Connor does NOT portray ‘Australian traits’ – I’ve know very senior guys (who I trust completely) coached by him and hear he’s been a total nut job for many many years.

We just don’t have the cattle.

Excellent article! Thanks Harry.

My take is that in years-gone-by the Boks were very much Hedgehogs and this foxishness is a little new to them. But it’s a welcome change – they’re not hedgehogs pretending to be foxes – there’s a lot of fox about the Boks now.

In contrast Australia used to be one of the foxiest of rugby teams but have now become headless chooks. Do they fit into this analogy?

Call me naive but I assumed any professional team would be learning different moves and would practice them to death until combinations became ingrained. I’ve always thought it would be tough for a national coach taking players for a short time who come from different systems and getting them to learn moves and gel in a short space of time. A bit like a Barbarians coach.

The difference is that I thought our national coach communicated with the super rugby coaches so at least when he got players from each team they were reasonably on the same page.

The fact we can pull players from England, France and Japan and slot them straight back into the team means my assumption is fallacy, doesn’t it? And explains why we look like a bunch of headless chooks most of the time.

“There is something seriously wrong with coaching, at all levels of Australian rugby, right up to the Wallabies, that the assembly line of great forwards and backs playing in the gold jersey, has somehow closed down.”

Exactly what I’ve been saying for yonks. It’s not just Cheika. We need to look at the whole assembly line. If we’re not getting the product we want at the end of it, there’s no point just blaming the last man in the assembly line. And I note the assembly line should be producing good coaches as well as good players.