Brumbies vs Lions @ Canberra - 2011R13

[minorbird]

Because you know, being in the top six of the overall Super 15 table despite injuries to key players reeks of rock bottom.

 

[Gagger]

Since you asked so politely, I thought it was obvious I was suggesting that perhaps you can now see how leadship comes from the top down and the board of the Mules is ultimately the root of the problems with this team. A direct parrallel can be made with another team......

Bizarrely, I'd thought that on a thread about the Brumbies you were referring to the Brumbies. But no, somehow it can all trace back to the dark evil that lurks at the top of the Waratahs.

Next thing you know someone will find a way to hijack a thread on Danny Cipriani and pull it round to the evil that also apparently lurks at the top of the ARU and Wallabies.

 

[Gnostic]

Bizarrely, I'd thought that on a thread about the Brumbies you were referring to the Brumbies. But no, somehow it can all trace back to the dark evil that lurks at the top of the Waratahs.

Next thing you know someone will find a way to hijack a thread on Danny Cipriani and pull it round to the evil that also apparently lurks at the top of the ARU and Wallabies.

Surely you can develop a bit of depth to your thought and actually try and look at what goes on below the surface. I was talking about the Brumbies but strangely thought for some stupid reason that the similarity would be obvious with the other mob and it makes an interesting comparison. Sorry to take your attention away from sitting on your bandwagon - carry on. :

 

[Gagger]

After a while, when the tune never changes - it just becomes white noise

 

[RedsHappy]

Hang on a minute here.....I don't remember "Stinger" Rea separating either the Senior players or franchise management in any of his statement. In fact, he says stuff like "in the wood" and the "whole organization". This means EVERYBODY. I got the strong feeling that just because Gits had the microphone under his nose didn't rule him out of the spray, and Stinger actually says something like "he's still entitled to be proud of 100 caps", implying that otherwise he should be taking the wrap equally......Can he stop this? How? His boss before him couldn't - it got him boned. The last power Stinger has left is to tell the truth to the world. And he does. Disclaimer: I have little (a few odds and ends) inside knowledge to inform the above - it's about as much as anyone in this thread. But in my experience of a few similar lunatic organisations, it fits.

Thanks Gagger. A counter ruck, if I may:

- IMO, the now famous spray was overwhelmingly an attack on the whole player group, and all in public, the references to other parties were way less prominent;

- My take upon the Gits references was very different; in fact, there were Rea statements to the effect that the players were letting Gits down (amusingly as if the Captain and most senior player (whom we all recall left the Brumbies when convenient for greater riches in the West) would have no impact at all upon these negative outcomes and attitude problems);

- IMO (and as I posted this throughout 2010, along with my then view that the ACTRU badly needed a QRU-like major cleanout), Friend was a second-rate coach that should have either been dropped at the end of the last (poor) 2010 season, or dropped at the end of this one, dropping him early this season was just a another symptom of the Brumbies' dysfunctionality syndrome. Friend seems to be being re-sanctified now in retrospect and in look-back sympathy, but the results achieved on his watch don't justify same;

- Both Friend and Rea absolutely took their jobs on knowing full well the nature of the Brumbies' dysfunctionality re player power, messy Board, etc. Everybody within 1,000 kms knows of that, by repute or directly, for a least the last 3-5 years this has been true. Painting them now as the poor, lost victims of all this is touching, but they fully knew the go there, the risks for coaches in that unwell hot-house were foretold;

- my core belief - as person and manager and fan - is that when a coach attacks _all_ of his players in public, it is the final admission of a systemic failure in the total business/RU/management/Board. When no CEO, Board member or such stands up and at least to some degree absolves all of the players as whipping-boys, I find that utterly reprehensible. Things are that way not because the the players are intrinsically flawed, lazy, weak (as Rea inferred), but because there has been a deep failure of senior RU leadership over many years, and thus the players have either been mis-selected, poorly trained, poorly motivated, harassed with negative not positive input, poorly organised, and poorly communicated with, or, typically in such situations, all of the above. Virtually none of this is their fault (as a total group compromising old and young, and new, etc). If some are there through mis-selection or are not cutting it, they should have been privately counselled and and/or culled by management long before this. So, I hate the public humiliation of _all_ players when 90% of the blame should be laid at the feet of leadership, and, potentially, the over-indulged senior player leadership (comprising known players that many fans here want to see in the Wallabies, just as btw.)

So, IMO your assessment is over-sympathetic and over-indulgent of Rea (and, inferentially, Friend btw). But my main points concerned the entire management system of the ACTRU - the low dark day of the Rea spray has been in the making for years.

[A PS: I know that my system-wide views on leadership calibre will and does upset some fans (and you and numerous mods class it as 'boring and repetitive' and, today I gather, just 'white noise'), but I see poor RU Board governance, low management quality and related mediocre coaching skill and depth as at the very heart of Australian rugby's generally mediocre and silently declining status as a proud, vibrant sporting code in Australia. Once these problems are systemically corrected, our code will commence dynamic regrowth and return to strategic success - just as the next-gen, 'working prototype' of a modern rugby success model is showing in QLD today]

 

[Ruggo]

Good on Rae for speaking out. He has his career interests to look after as he is in the market for a job and I am sure he does not want his name dragged into the mud by this sham of an outfit. Every interview I have heard him do before this he has been a straight shooter, calls a spade a spade. The bloke strikes me to have a lot of integrity.

Where are the tough talkers now? Remember Stephen Hoiles talking about how they will be accountable from hear on in. Bloody amaizing how the bloke has vanished out of ear shot or sight. Gutless bastard is all I can think of. Fair go mate, you overprivilliged wankers owe your fans an explanation. There are a couple of players that go hard week in week out and it is a shame they are caught in this mess. Colby Fainga'a springs to mind.

 

[wamberal]

When does White start work? Will he have enough time to evaluate and attract enough decent players to keep the franchise afloat?


Why would any half decent prospect want to put their futures into this particular snake pit? (There are several snake pits closer to home for most of them).

 

[Brumby Jack]

When does White start work?

July

 

[Ruggo]

BJ. In your opinion, what are the chances of him being given the latitude to shake things up?

 

[Brumby Jack]

I'll put my response in the Brumbies 2012 thread. It's more relevant there.