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Wallaby Coach Conga Line

Willin1

Allen Oxlade (6)
Rennie was a very strong candidate for ABs and many people's favourite. I reckon he's a good score for AR and his staunch, no fuckaround manner could be a good fit.
Now the ABs are down to Robertson and foster and if the latter is picked you'll here the screams from this side of the Tasman.
 

Jimmy_Crouch

Ken Catchpole (46)
Rennie was a very strong candidate for ABs and many people's favourite. I reckon he's a good score for AR and his staunch, no fuckaround manner could be a good fit.
Now the ABs are down to Robertson and foster and if the latter is picked you'll here the screams from this side of the Tasman.

Decisive and strong leadership from RA. Who would have thought? Great move.
 
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Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
Now we've got a head coach, I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on the assistants.

I'd go with:

Dave Rennie (Head Coach)
Matt Taylor (Defence)
Scott Wisemantle (Attack)
Laurie Fisher (Forwards)
Mick Byrne (Skills)
Haydn Masters (Strength and Conditioning)

100% would go with this. Some extremely talented and experienced AC coaches both domestically and internationally. I cannot think of a better coaching structure.
 

formerflanker

Ken Catchpole (46)
100% would go with this. Some extremely talented and experienced AC coaches both domestically and internationally. I cannot think of a better coaching structure.

Only 6 coaches?
Pfft.
Let's add a kicking coach, mental skills coach, backs coach, kick return coach, box kick chasing coach, team rehab coach, media skills coach, re-starts coach, captain's decision making coach, and laws interpretation coach.
There. A full team plus one reserve.
(Written with equal amounts of sarcasm and wonder.)
 

formerflanker

Ken Catchpole (46)
Decisive and strong leadership from RA. Who would have thought? Great move.

A move that has been plotted in secret for many months.
A move that was based on the knowledge we would not win the RWC, nor do well enough to keep Cheika.
Rennie will coach us well, and to do so he needs to overcome the poisonous background to his appointment.
i guess winning will fix all previous problems and criticisms.
Go Wallabies!
 

Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
Only 6 coaches?

Laurie has stated he can do both Brumbies and Wallabies. The other 4 (Matt, Scott Mick and Haydn) should be rolled out nationally to ensure all Super, NRC and Clubs have a clear vision on the direct of Australian Rugby and what they expect players skill/development levels to be.

At the end of the day, they're just forward facing RA employees who have national roles to be fulfilled.
 

Jets

Paul McLean (56)
Staff member
Only 6 coaches?
Pfft.
Let's add a kicking coach, mental skills coach, backs coach, kick return coach, box kick chasing coach, team rehab coach, media skills coach, re-starts coach, captain's decision making coach, and laws interpretation coach.
There. A full team plus one reserve.
(Written with equal amounts of sarcasm and wonder.)

While I chuckled a little at your post there is some merit in the mental skills coach role. Gilbert Enoka has done wonders for NZ.
 

Brumby Runner

David Wilson (68)
Rennie took himself out of the running for the All Blacks job. I doubt he would have got it but he pretty clearly made a decision to accept the Australian job rather than wait and see on NZ.

I see little point in trying to appoint someone for only two years at this point. The win record after one year would have to be so low to not be offering them a new contract that it probably isn't worth considering. You'd be working on the contract extension before any tests were played in 2021.

If RA wants a contract that is heavily weighted in their favour they either need to pay significantly more for a top coach or settle for a crap coach no one else wants who will take whatever is offered.
Either case is arguably better than paying a $Million bucks a year to a coach whom very few wanted after the first twelve months. The four year term is the only quibble I have with the appointment. If we learnt anything from the last four years, it must be that the coach must be able to be moved on without great cost if the results are not forthcoming.

I don't think a two year term would have been too hard to sell to Dave, so long as the expectations for the first year were reasonable and clearly stated, ie a rebuilding year with a real expectation of say a 40% winning record but meeting all other requirements in terms of squad and culture building, harmony and player development etc. He is only available around June 2020. Wouldn't be too many top teams in world rugby then interested in his services if RA hadn't stepped in.
 

Derpus

George Gregan (70)
Either case is arguably better than paying a $Million bucks a year to a coach whom very few wanted after the first twelve months. The four year term is the only quibble I have with the appointment. If we learnt anything from the last four years, it must be that the coach must be able to be moved on without great cost if the results are not forthcoming.

I don't think a two year term would have been too hard to sell to Dave, so long as the expectations for the first year were reasonable and clearly stated, ie a rebuilding year with a real expectation of say a 40% winning record but meeting all other requirements in terms of squad and culture building, harmony and player development etc. He is only available around June 2020. Wouldn't be too many top teams in world rugby then interested in his services if RA hadn't stepped in.
If we only offered 2 years i think at the very least he would have held out to see what NZ had to offer.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
I don't think a two year term would have been too hard to sell to Dave, so long as the expectations for the first year were reasonable and clearly stated, ie a rebuilding year with a real expectation of say a 40% winning record but meeting all other requirements in terms of squad and culture building, harmony and player development etc. He is only available around June 2020. Wouldn't be too many top teams in world rugby then interested in his services if RA hadn't stepped in.


So you pay substantially more to effectively have the chance to start looking for a new coach after one year because you've already decided it's not going to work out.

If we play 14 tests next year, let's say we only win 4 or 5 of them. Not a crazy concept that we could lose twice to Ireland, three times to NZ, twice to the RWC winners, SA and win only 2 of our 4 tests on the EOYT. Should RA be sacking Rennie already?

I see the four year contract as a cost saving because the potential time for sacking them is after the first two years at which time they're either in the back half of the cheaper four year contract or early in the more expensive two year contract heading towards the RWC.
 

Brumby Runner

David Wilson (68)
I recognise your approach BH, but really there must be more to an appointment of a national coach than simply money. As I said above, the KPI or whatever term we want to use for the first year has to be reasonable and considered achievable by both parties. And it would cover a number of non-results type requirements also, like team building, culture, skills and player development too.

If we simply appoint for four years continually, then we could, and probably would, end up in a loop where we never get to break a cycle of less than successful coaches. I simply do not want to see another Cheika-like situation arise where we couldn't afford to discard him, ever again.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
If we simply appoint for four years continually, then we could, and probably would, end up in a loop where we never get to break a cycle of less than successful coaches. I simply do not want to see another Cheika-like situation arise where we couldn't afford to discard him, ever again.


I don't think we will. In fact we rarely if ever have.

The Cheika situation is exactly why I would offer Rennie a four year contract immediately after a RWC because the point at which Cheika's contract was extended was roughly the timeframe that you'd be looking at extending Rennie if his original contract was only two years. It's almost certainly going to happen.

We couldn't afford to discard Cheika because there was no upside to doing so. Any late replacement would have either been contracted beyond the 2019 RWC lessening our replacement options at that time (because there are less high level coaches available) or we purely appointed an interim coach which could have been even more disastrous (it would have probably been one of the assistants).

The reality is that Rennie will either not make it all the way through the four years to the RWC or he will and he'll be given an extension of probably two years following it.

I don't think it's any coincidence that most new international coaches appointed after the 2015 or 2019 RWC's have been given four year contracts. If they've already had four years the extension is generally less.

I.e. Eddie Jones contracted for four years following 2015 RWC, extended for 2 years following 2019 RWC.
 

dru

Tim Horan (67)
Looked at some Kiwi boards and the sentiment seems to be that the NZRFU have missed a trick with all of Schmidt, Gatland, Rennie and JJ out of the running.

Most rate Rennie highly.

It was the same with Dingo.
 
B

Bobby Sands

Guest
I’ve got a good feeling about this. If we can get Tattsy & Wise back too we have hit the jackpot.

The rugby IQ input from those three will cascade down to the next tiers of Oz rugby.

Think it’s unquestioned we need to get Eddie back at some point, and not necessarily as the coach.
 

dru

Tim Horan (67)
It’s hard to be really upbeat given our recent experiences. Not that recent actually.

But the obvious RA errors are not present here and what has been done is consistent with reasonable business, sporting and rugby IQ.

I doubt we’ve enticed the likely AB coach to Aus, but given there is no serious Aus challenger then getting a decent Kiwi is a good thing.

Fingers crossed.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
Yeah me too BS. If we get the assistants right and with the young talent coming through continue to develop, I think we'll be in good shape.

I'd like to see Lord Laurie and Matt Taylor (at the very least) involved heavily in the set up and spreading the gospel to the rest of the country. Taylor has a connection to Rennie and Johnson through the Scotland setup, right? Hopefully they can entice him to come home.
 

Sully

Tim Horan (67)
Staff member
So you pay substantially more to effectively have the chance to start looking for a new coach after one year because you've already decided it's not going to work out.

If we play 14 tests next year, let's say we only win 4 or 5 of them. Not a crazy concept that we could lose twice to Ireland, three times to NZ, twice to the RWC winners, SA and win only 2 of our 4 tests on the EOYT. Should RA be sacking Rennie already?

I see the four year contract as a cost saving because the potential time for sacking them is after the first two years at which time they're either in the back half of the cheaper four year contract or early in the more expensive two year contract heading towards the RWC.
Yeah. Next year could be horrible. And we'll need to listen to the tossers on here with their 'I told you so' comments. But Cheika would be lucky to win that many and Larkham would lose an extra one try a driving maul for the final ten minutes.
 
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