Thanks for the article Nick. Again, great piece. I know yourself, Brett, Geoff, etc. offer balanced, constructive observations.

I’m late to the party as usual but can someone remind me how long this experiment has been going on? Looking back, it seems to me to have started when Quade Cooper came onto the scene. No – I’m not bashing Cooper – I’m just trying to work out when this musical chairs approach started.

It’s also funny because I think of guys like Horan and Little. Back then Horan was clearly a 12 and it would have been odd seeing him play at 13 or on the wing. Little was clearly a 13. It would have been odd to see him playing 12. Although I think he played on the wing from time to time? Ditto Campo in the centers (*shudder*). And we had 10s who could tackle so didn’t need to be hidden. Is this right or am I rose-tinting things again?

Ok…

But aside from the selections, defence, game plan, coaching, positional juggling, tackling, running lines, forward power, team balance, set play, rugby nous, mental toughness, passing and kicking skills… the Wallabies aren’t too bad, are they?

“how many corners have we turned?”

So many we’re just running in a circle, going nowhere.

An argument that there was ‘over coaching’ could have been made in the past with coaches of a different style – e.g. Eddie Jones?

The coaching I’m talking about is about getting players able to execute core skills at pace and under pressure. To quote the article: “maneuvers were pulled off at speed and with a sleight of hand that made us gasp, …[players[ ran and handled with a slickness and shape we hadn’t seen before. The ball popped and pinged from hand to hand like corn on a stove”. We don’t seem to be seeing that any more.

Perhaps players are being taught ‘plays’ and just following the routines given them without the nous to read the game and the skills to improvise. I’d call this bad coaching as opposed to overcoaching.

You mean like this?

Why Michael Hooper is the Six Million Dollar Man

Nick, a brilliant article – even better than the usual high standard I think.

I’ll accept that whether we were the smartest or not can probably be debated but, you’re right, the Wallabies were a very, very smart team with a lot of nous on and off the field. From the late 80s through the 90s. Which is why it’s so disappointing to see the dumbification that’s happened during the course of this century. A similar thing happened to Australian cricket I think.

Watching the stars from that era I thought they’d all go into coaching and teach another generation the dark arts. Warne his spin, McGrath his seamers, Waugh his patience, Mortlock the inside shoulder, Larkham his running lines and passing ,etc.

Aside from Larkham it hasn’t really happened. This embedding of knowledge, keeping the good and cutting away the bad is what seems to me to really set NZ apart. Wallabies were just as good as the All Blacks in the 90s but the All Blacks ‘institutionalised’ their talent – we seemed to consider ours were just flash-in-the-pan, once-in-a-generation aberrations and now just cross our fingers another batch will miraculously arise.

This is why I’d like to see us invest more in a coaching academy and pay our coaches at all levels vastly more. Get the best coaches from school level right up to super rugby. To do this we’d have to pay our ‘top stars’ less and, yes, see them leave these shores. I know I sound simplistic but in doing this I really think we’d have a much better chance of future success.

A brilliant article and the first comment is a whinge about the ref. *sigh*

Michael Cheika “has a plan.”

Yes, I too see no evidence of it. Must be too secret to give away. I think he’s foxing. It’s an old XK Red 27 technique. A double bluff?

Spot on

Jeez Toomua must be happy to be back in Oz. He’s gone from being praised as one of the best in Leicester to being punted after a couple of performances. I don’t think it’s been Toomua that’s had Falcons and brain explosions the last couple of matches, is it?

Unfortunately I think in Australia at the moment you’re better off doing a few flashy things that get noticed and having poor fundamentals than the other way around.

That Stephen Hoiles quote is from 4 or 5 months ago. Is there are particular (more recent!) incident that’s sparked this article? Or is it just apropos of nothing?

Not necessarily arguing with any of the points in the article – just curious as to the timing.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/analysis-the-wallabies-have-reached-the-peak-of-delusion

You’re right. The rugby pass article is a cracker and totally on the money.

A nice, calm, measured article. Now let’s start the rants!

Cheika has made a lot of very odd decisions since he took over. Remember his decision not to take a proper back-up 10 on the overseas tour? What about his decisions around game time for back-up 9s? And some of his selections leave many scratching their heads.

There’s equally a lot of question marks hanging over the heads of the assistant coaches. A defensive coach coming into the Wallabies with one of the worst defensive records. And an attack coach that (brilliant player that he was) hasn’t shown his prowess in developing a good attacking side yet.

But all of this – the lack of coaching nous, the lack of player nous and skills – the quality of play in the super rugby sides -these are all SYMPTOMS of a broken structure.

Another good article by Nick Turnbull today asks what happened to the National Coaching Panel. That would have been a good idea – a key pylon in the structure RA should be constructing. But where is it?

NRC could and should be another key pylon but it sounds like it’s being whittled away by administrative apathy.

We can sack the coach or all the coaches. We can shuffle people around in positions. Change captains. Whatever. Things aren’t going to change overnight regardless of any of that. We need a root-and-branch rebuild and investment in the FUTURE of rugby in Australia. It’s going to take 10-15 years but jeez I’d be a lot more excited watching something grow and develop than wither and die.

TWAS your ‘trapped in this thinking’ comments seems a little ironic. Nobody is arguing that we need to be the best or we ‘do the opposite’ of what we’ve got. You’re just reinterpreting what’s being said in the most extreme ways. And your ‘no evidence Aus Rugby can support any other model’ comment below is laughable.

In any case, you win. I give up. I used to absolutely love rugby but I gave up years ago. I log in here from time to time just to see how things are going. I wonder how many years of degradation we have to witness, how low we have to drop in the rankings, how low the crowds and ratings needs to be before something changes. I actually don’t think it will ever happen now. Rugby Australia is a frog slowly boiling.

Sorry TWAS. Your original comment was taking exception with the authors comparison between payments to NRC players vs. top Wallaby players. Your statement was that “Wallabies income trickles down”. I get maybe you meant the “excess revenue” trickles down but the authors comparison between pay rates remains valid.

I’ve got no problem with Australia’s rugby administrators paying top Wallabies huge amounts… IF that actually genuinely resulted in the Wallabies winning more, attracting bigger crowds, making more revenue (that more than offsets the additional costs) and this “excess revenue” trickling down.

The fact is that’s not happening. We are getting worse and worse, dropping in the world rankings, attracting increasingly poor crowds and generally running at a loss. People are turning off in droves and rugby is totally losing relevance in this country. The model has to be changed, even if it means losing the ‘big names’.

Sorry, how does this money ‘trickle down’? Do the Wallabies go back to their clubs and buy a few beers and sausage sandwiches?

G’day Brett and fellow Roarers.

Nobody is beyond reproach. And I do think the players and coaches are doing some crazy things sometimes. But I really do think that simply calling for a player or coach to be dumped is knee-jerk. So we get rid of Cheika and instead install… who?

The fact is, as I and others have mentioned: We don’t have pathways that are creating good players and coaches. We can shake our fists at the guys who’ve followed the pathways to their conclusion all we like. There’s not a bunch of people standing behind them that are head-and-shoulders above them in terms of quality.

I like the new page format by the way.

Cheers, WNM

sheek,

Yes, I’m with you. But for an article that started with “Don’t shoot the piano player, he is doing his best”, this article still spent a fair bit of time shooting at the piano players.

Sticking with this Wild West saloon analogy, if we can’t blame the piano player, who do we blame? In this analogy the piano teachers are the coaches. But surely they are doing their best too.

The fundamental question is: Is this town any sort of place where you’d want to be playing or teaching the piano? Everyone in this town has now grown up watching piano players and teachers get shot at. Even when they’re the best in the town.

I’m conscious there’s another town just down the road that might pay piano players more and maybe we can’t compete with that but there must be other things we can offer that make this town attractive.

Imagine you’re Michael Hooper’s Dad right now. You’ve watched your son from the time he was a boy give his heart and soul, be battered and bruised every week and keep on coming. Although he lacks a little in stature and perhaps in skills, he’s risen through sheer guts to be captain of the Wallabies. And every week after he goes out, he’s torn to shreds in the media. Nobody in the team or the coaching staff is immune.

I’m not a Hooper supporter or a detractor but our attacks on our very best players and coaches is just going to further embed that this is not an attractive environment for them. So we’ve ended up in a situation where the only way we can now get them to stay is to pay them a truckload of money. And the release of this pay information to the public just further exacerbates this toxic environment.

I’d like to hear Rugby Australia come up and 100% own this situation. To admit that they are in charge of creating the right environment – the right structure for rugby in this country to succeed. To defend the players and coaches. And to tell us what they are doing to turn things around. To give us all a realistic timeframe (10 years?), show how we’re going to measure progress over this period… and quit if they can’t achieve the progress they’ve promised.

Not everyone is surprised.

We know rugby is a funny game and I think the teams are close enough in talent that the Wallabies might beat the All Blacks maybe one in ten times – when the All Blacks are having a particularly off night and the Wallabies get the bounce of the ball, rub of the green and everything else. A bit like the French.

But many of us have been saying for years that the way to fix things isn’t:
– working on aspect X during the next week or month
– swapping out one player for another of similar quality
– swapping out the coach for one of similar quality

The structure of rugby in Australia just isn’t producing players and coaches of the kind of quality they have on the other side of the ditch. We continue to invest WAY too much money on the top 10 or so players hoping that will mean they stay, we get good results, that attracts fans and we therefore earn more money. And that the money at the top is a carrot for those lower down to chase. That sounds like a positive reinforcement cycle but it isn’t – it’s the opposite.

We shouldn’t be investing in the players that are already at the top – we should be investing in the players who MIGHT be at the top in another 5-10 years. Ditto for coaches.

Foley and Genia – these are guys who are almost the embodiment of the Rugby Australia structure at the moment. We’re not bothering to invest in the guys underneath them – we’re putting all our eggs in a very small, fragile basket.

Every now and then good young players like Tupou, Banks and Maddocks will appear via the current structure… but a lot more would appear in a lot more positions and they’d be even better players if we’d only invest more in them – time, coaching and money – than in the elite dozen or so.

Must be Tuesday.

We’ve got some serious Statler and Waldorf going on here sometimes.
(The old men from the Muppets)

Good call. In Genia and Cooper there was a great partnership with the POTENTIAL to be one of the best ever. Unfortunately for various reasons it never panned out the way most of us would have liked.

I endorse the Crowd this week in thanking you guys for your thoughtful writing each week. I often don’t get time to comment these days but I usually read and all of you are voices of reason in what can be a sea of crazy out there at times.

Hard to argue with any of this.

Having a quick review of this page on wikipedia tells me the Crusaders have been in the grand final twice as often as any other team – 12 times since 1996 and they’ve won 8 of them for a 67% grand-final winning %.

As an old Brumbies fan I remember many a clash with them as our nemesis early this century. Brumbies have the next most appearances in the grand final with 6 but only won 33% of them.

There are other teams with a better grand-final-win% such as the Bulls and (surprisingly) the Blues and Reds. But they were all real flash-in-the-pans – hadn’t appeared in many grand finals before or since.

New Zealand are the clearly the preeminent rugby nation on Earth, have been for decades and the Crusaders are surely a good feeder into this national level success.

You had me at Larry Bird.

Another cracker of an article.

That’s rubbish.

Two players jump for the ball, both have their “feet off the ground”, they bump into each other. They’re BOTH broken that law! Or do we look at who left the ground first and that’s the player that should be protected by that law?