Wallaby Coaching Staff

[wamberal]

I don't buy the "momentum" factor. What counts is what the head coach believes that his playing group can realistically achieve. The game is so enervating these days, these fellas started playing 9 or more months ago, surely their time on the field has to be carefully managed.

 

[Quick Hands]

I don't buy the "momentum" factor. What counts is what the head coach believes that his playing group can realistically achieve. The game is so enervating these days, these fellas started playing 9 or more months ago, surely their time on the field has to be carefully managed.

Indeed it does, but I don't call 11 in one match "carefully managed".

 

[KOB1987]

Not surprisingly, none of the press I have seen this morning is calling for the heads of Cheika et al, instead focusing on the state of rugby in Australia at the grassroots levels. The other stat I saw that was interesting is that there are about 100 Aussies playing in Europe, 60 of which Cheika reckons are good enough to be playing super rugby.

Grassroots and third tier are the real problems. Aussie rugby needs an extremely generous benefactor for us to make some serious inroads. Is it possible for the ARU to hold a lottery like the poms did before the London Olympics? Blame the coaches all you like but the real problem is that the players we have as our first choice options as a whole aren't good enough.

Anyway, I'm digressing from the topic of this thread! Hopefully, and I'm sure they will, the coaching setup spend a lot of the next 6 months watching reels of the test season just gone and make the appropriate changes to our systems, structures and game plan.

 

[KOB1987]

Indeed it does, but I don't call 11 in one match "carefully managed".

Cheika said at the start of the season that some of the selections he was making were about building depth. I don't think we have any reason to doubt him. The France test was a good example of this, he gave everyone an opportunity and they stepped up and won.

I think building depth is how Cheika thinks we can best deal with the problems identified above in a 4 year timeframe. This test season leaves a bit of collateral damage with a longer term objective, RWC2019. He said he has some players from the current U20 squad he wants to blood next year.

 

[Scrubber2050]

Not surprisingly, none of the press I have seen this morning is calling for the heads of Cheika et al, instead focusing on the state of rugby in Australia at the grassroots levels. The other stat I saw that was interesting is that there are about 100 Aussies playing in Europe, 60 of which Cheika reckons are good enough to be playing super rugby.

Grassroots and third tier are the real problems. Aussie rugby needs an extremely generous benefactor for us to make some serious inroads. Is it possible for the ARU to hold a lottery like the poms did before the London Olympics? Blame the coaches all you like but the real problem is that the players we have as our first choice options as a whole aren't good enough.

Anyway, I'm digressing from the topic of this thread! Hopefully, and I'm sure they will, the coaching setup spend a lot of the next 6 months watching reels of the test season just gone and make the appropriate changes to our systems, structures and game plan.

KOB whilst I sort of agree there are obvious problems at grassroots it's absolute bullshit that changes to systems blah blah will fix the game in this country.

Your solution is a 10 - 20 year change. We do not have the luxury of time.

Start at the top and work backwards. The Wallabies bring in most of the dosh. We need a Coach who can bring the best out of players. This bloke has shown this year he is unable to do that. Sure he says the right things (and sometimes the wrong ones as well) about building blah blah. Think there is plenty of division in the ranks

HE needs to take responsibility, not just blame HIS players for poor execution.

The June tests next year should be easy beat wins with our "C" side.

A win record this year under Cheika and his mates, being what, 6 out of 15 is fucking dismal. Nobody with any credibility can put enough spin on the record/

 

[Strewthcobber]

The most interesting part of a disappointing season is watching Cheika et al developing their strategies not to counter the opposition, but to deal with the flaws in their own side.

Our 10 and 15 didn't kick once in general play on the weekend. Our 7s focus is not on the ruck, one winger is picked because of his defense at OC, we've picked loosies all year because of lineout skills, rotating locks to build depth and changing who leads pods, where each particular forward is based in both attack and defense etc etc.

A lot of these plans didn't come off, but then again going traditional would have introduced other weaknesses.

Was it worth it? At least it shows they are thinking beyond the square.

 

[dru]

Cheika said at the start of the season that some of the selections he was making were about building depth. I don't think we have any reason to doubt him. The France test was a good example of this, he gave everyone an opportunity and they stepped up and won.

I think building depth is how Cheika thinks we can best deal with the problems identified above in a 4 year timeframe. This test season leaves a bit of collateral damage with a longer term objective, RWC2019. He said he has some players from the current U20 squad he wants to blood next year.

Building depth, selections etc - let's take all you say (for the sake of the discussion) as correct. It still leaves this statement un-refuted.

Indeed it does, but I don't call 11 in one match "carefully managed".

 

[Scrubber2050]

The most interesting part of a disappointing season is watching Cheika et al developing their strategies not to counter the opposition, but to deal with the flaws in their own side.

Our 10 and 15 didn't kick once in general play on the weekend. Our 7s focus is not on the ruck, one winger is picked because of his defense at OC, we've picked loosies all year because of lineout skills, rotating locks to build depth and changing who leads pods, where each particular forward is based in both attack and defense etc etc.

A lot of these plans didn't come off, but then again going traditional would have introduced other weaknesses.

Was it worth it? At least it shows they are thinking beyond the square.

The results certainly say that we shouldn't have been thinking outside the square.

 

[Strewthcobber]

The results certainly say that we shouldn't have been thinking outside the square.

We could have had a nice, conservative season like the Boks.....

edit not saying I disagree, but different doesn't equal better

 

[Scrubber2050]

We could have had a nice, conservative season like the Boks...

edit not saying I disagree, but different doesn't equal better

Well it certainly has been a roller coaster ride this year, with more downs than ups.

 

[gel]

The most interesting part of a disappointing season is watching Cheika et al developing their strategies not to counter the opposition, but to deal with the flaws in their own side.

Our 10 and 15 didn't kick once in general play on the weekend. Our 7s focus is not on the ruck, one winger is picked because of his defense at OC, we've picked loosies all year because of lineout skills, rotating locks to build depth and changing who leads pods, where each particular forward is based in both attack and defense etc etc.

A lot of these plans didn't come off, but then again going traditional would have introduced other weaknesses.

Was it worth it? At least it shows they are thinking beyond the square.

^^^^ It's too much though.

Any one (or possibly 2) of these "accommodations" could be accounted for, but we have just so many across the park that I don't think the players can cope with it.

Just simplify it back down and the wallabies would be better for it.

 

[Strewthcobber]

^^^^ It's too much though.

Any one (or possibly 2) of these "accommodations" could be accounted for, but we have just so many across the park that I don't think the players can cope with it.

Just simplify it back down and the wallabies would be better for it.

Can you simplify it down with Foley at 10, Hooper at 7 and Izzy at 15? Or are we talking about wholesale changes to our "best players"

 

[Ignoto]

A win record this year under Cheika and his mates, being what, 6 out of 15 is fucking dismal. Nobody with any credibility can put enough spin on the record/

I agree with most of the sentiments going on, what's interesting when you look at this year after it's completion is who we played. Combined, we've played the top two teams 7 times this year, or almost half of our matches. We then lost to fourth place at away from home and a game against the Boks we should have won.

What other country has had such a gruelling schedule before and one that's made worse the year after a RWC.

To rub salt in the wound, the English won't play the Kiwis until 2018 and I'd be willing to bet the Jones honeymoon period will be over by then and they'll get walloped.

 

[fatprop]

I agree with most of the sentiments going on, what's interesting when you look at this year after it's completion is who we played. Combined, we've played the top two teams 7 times this year, or almost half of our matches. We then lost to fourth place at away from home and a game against the Boks we should have won.

What other country has had such a gruelling schedule before and one that's made worse the year after a RWC.

To also make matters worse, the English won't play the Kiwis until 2018 and I'd be willing to bet the Jones honeymoon period will be over by then and they'll get walloped.

Yeah, the Bok away loss was the one we should have won.

Losing to the ABs, the current Poms and the Irish away is not outrageous, they are all damn good sides.

Although any Poms vs AB match may come down to home and away factors over the next few matches

 

[Quick Hands]

^^^^ It's too much though.

Any one (or possibly 2) of these "accommodations" could be accounted for, but we have just so many across the park that I don't think the players can cope with it.

Just simplify it back down and the wallabies would be better for it.

I just hope that Cheika and staff make a serious and honest reflection on 2016. There were some serious errors of judgement IMO. I also agree with what IS said over on the England match thread about parachuting overseas based players in for certain tests. Short term it might have papered over a couple of cracks, but if long term thinking is what we're on about then it's completely the wrong thing to be doing.

 

[Quick Hands]

Not surprisingly, none of the press I have seen this morning is calling for the heads of Cheika et al, instead focusing on the state of rugby in Australia at the grassroots levels. The other stat I saw that was interesting is that there are about 100 Aussies playing in Europe, 60 of which Cheika reckons are good enough to be playing super rugby.

This maybe so, but the fact is that these guys aren't playing in Australia. Instead of worrying about what isn't, I think he needs to accept the reality of who he has available and work from there.

 

[Twoilms]

This maybe so, but the fact is that these guys aren't playing in Australia. Instead of worrying about what isn't, I think he needs to accept the reality of who he has available and work from there.

I think we should be trying pretty hard to avoid a state of affairs similar to Soccer (of Football) where any worthy player plies their trade in 3 or 4 European leagues and the rest of the world's domestic competitions fade into irrelevance.

We should be trying to grow our domestic game and we should be trying to bring those players back to Australia.

 

[fatprop]

I just hope that Cheika and staff make a serious and honest reflection on 2016. There were some serious errors of judgement IMO. I also agree with what IS said over on the England match thread about parachuting overseas based players in for certain tests. Short term it might have papered over a couple of cracks, but if long term thinking is what we're on about then it's completely the wrong thing to be doing.

Expect it to happen for Beale as soon as he is healthy as well

 

[Brumby Runner]

Expect it to happen for Beale as soon as he is healthy as well

I agree it will happen FP, but are you saying it'd be a good or bad thing?

 

[wamberal]

I just hope that Cheika and staff make a serious and honest reflection on 2016. There were some serious errors of judgement IMO. I also agree with what IS said over on the England match thread about parachuting overseas based players in for certain tests. Short term it might have papered over a couple of cracks, but if long term thinking is what we're on about then it's completely the wrong thing to be doing.

I will defend Chubby on this one. For starters, I assume that the introduction of the Giteau Law was taken by the ARU after a considered analysis of the pros and cons.


I thought at the time that it was a brilliant move, and when we made it through to the World Cup final it was validated in spades. We all thought, and I would include everybody who loves rugby in Australia, that getting through to the World Cup final, coupled with the success of our Women in Rio, would represent a major turning point for the game.

We had broken through, it was going to be blue skies from now on.


We were wrong, but that does not mean that Giteau's Law was intrinsically wrong. Having said all that, I did believe that this year had to be a rebuilding year, and so I was a bit surprised when the NH players were invited to Camp Wallaby. But I was still prepared to give Chubby the benefit of the doubt, hoping that the end of better results would justify what seemed to be a stop-gap measure.

At the end of the day, our player resources are severely limited compared to the other leading nations. So we have to be smarter and more creative than we have been in the past. If that means selecting overseas-based players, fine, why not? But only after very careful consideration on a case by case basis.