GAGR Vote - Should Deans go after the EOYT?

[liquor box]

If there is any coach-stays-or-sacked decision making more utterly stupid than that based upon 'if we win the next game or two' assessment criteria, I don't what it is or how to describe it.

Yet to add disastrous misjudgement to fours years of pre-existing folly, this seems to be precisely the manner in which the hapless and self-admiring ARU board is approaching the question of Deans' survival.

A proper evaluation of a national coach should be based upon a thorough, fact-based analysis of historical achievement and the gradual accumulation of data as to how that person has, inter alia, not only won the key games, but equally the objectively assessed depth and quality of game plan development, skills development, and individual player development across (say) the country's 30 top players of recent years. Then, this analysis framework should be applied forward as what further and better development is targeted for the next two or so years of team evolution and growth. And in this manner a coach is properly assessed based on long-line achievement (or otherwise) linked to forward-looking team goals. This method knows that coaches don't suddenly transform themselves or their team management style and capability over night; a few games, despite the results either way, will change nothing fundamental, no important truths will alter.

The manner by which the ARU seems to be approaching a late 2012 Deans decision indicates the very opposite of this method - '..just one more victory Robbie and all will be well, one or two bad losses, hmmm, that could spell trouble for you..'. It's like assessing a corporate CEO who's barely kept the business afloat for four years, the firm is losing market share and cash flow, yet its board say 'one month or two of a small profit and you'll survive for now'. That simple but accurate analogy shows just how laughable, inept and reckless is the ARU's approach. And it's reckless in the extreme when we consider that after December 1 v Wales there is not a single further Test until BIL 1 at Suncorp in June.

The ARU board is a frightening case study in introversion, 'ex-Wallaby-to-ex-Wallaby code of fawning silence' so's to stay in the lucrative old boys' rugby networks, inadequate business and strategic sports management skills and, above all, the lack of the very 'courage and character' attributes they message out to their media minders whose job it is to pump up the compliant and lazy mainline rugby media we have in Australia today.

We fans - and the code as a whole - look like paying a shocking price for this board's lack of courage, character and appropriate competence.

I think it is not a case of firing him due to the losses, but just a convenient way to get rid of him and the ARU keep face. Before we left for Europe it was not out of the question that we might struggle, so if a decision had been made to fire him a while ago then you would wait for a couple of losses before the decision so it looked justified, if you fire him immediatley after we had a draw with the All Blacks the general public would be asking why we are firing a coach that got an understrength team toe perform on an equal level with the best team in the world.

I dont think that a new coach is the answer, with the current availiability of players there is little chance of a new coach making a massive difference. I would like to see a change though, but I have no idea who I would prefer, I think I would probably pick Jake White as I really like the way he seemed to get into the Brumbies, select a captain who was not a long term player and seems to have gotten rid of the player power issues that the Brumbies have had. I think the Wallabies need to do the same and start from scratch and forget previous form and introduce a no dickheads policy.

 

[RedsHappy]

Liquorbox: I think it is not a case of firing him due to the losses, but just a convenient way to get rid of him and the ARU keep face. ....

Well, if that's your choice of the ARU's 'approach' to decision making re Deans as of now, if anything it's more outrageous and lacking in integrity than the one I posited above.

I dont think that a new coach is the answer, with the current availiability of players there is little chance of a new coach making a massive difference. I would like to see a change though.....

That of course was what was commonly said in late 2009 and 2011 respectively before Link and J White assumed their new roles with the then Reds and Brumbies. Within months of their first seasons commencing with these teams they made major, demonstrable improvements.

 

[RedsHappy]

Well put, RH.
But do we actually know what thought and / or discussion has gone on with regard to the coach, apart from oft-posted rumours on here about "he needs to win the next game, or 2 games or whatever", no disrespect to Jets and others who have posted such rumours? I struggle to believe the process is so capricious. I think it's more likely that the complete lack of transparency and accountability leads us all to hypothesise about such odd decision-making processes, or indeed lack thereof. My real concern is the possibility that a successor has been all but anointed, save for a token talent quest, and that it is Nucifora, and the silence from the ARU is more ominous. But that is just hypothesis on my part!

Point taken Cyclo, we don't know for sure, but from the 'in the know' mainline journos who knowingly trade analytical integrity for the 'access' to ARU coaches, minders and players, this model of 'win X of Y current games' etc re RD's survival seems to routinely flow, even though the X and Y changes a bit from week to week.

Nonetheless, let's assume Nucifora - God forbid - is all packaged up and anointed to replace RD after the Wales Test. If so, what reckless madness of forethought is it to leave the potential coach changeover point with zero Tests between the last of the EOYT and BIL 1 2013?

 

[Sully]

Are you suggesting we wait until after the lions and have a brand new coach for TRC. Point is there is no time when it's ideal to change coaches. If we go into the Lions with this mob we're fucked anyway. How much worse could it be?

 

[cyclopath]

I seriously think we've passed the point at which a coach would really want the job. Sure, there is 6 months until the BIL Tests, but I think any coach would have wanted the EOYT to at least try some things, rather than be dropped into the most important home series in years, after the injury lottery of the Super 15.
The time for change, in my opinion, has passed. It would be madness, indeed, as RedsHappy says, to do it after this tour.

 

[RedsHappy]

Are you suggesting we wait until after the lions and have a brand new coach for TRC. Point is there is no time when it's ideal to change coaches. If we go into the Lions with this mob we're fucked anyway. How much worse could it be?

Of course there are better times to change national coaches than others. For example, taking the last year or so and looking forward to BIL etc, just after the RWC would have been sensible as a change point, or just after the recent inbound Wales series would likely have been tolerable.

But a change after the 2012 EOYT and pre BIL is just about the worst imaginable time to make a change. If, that is, the interests of Australian rugby, its fans and sponsors are the pre-eminent guiding lights (which manifestly they are not at this time).

 

[kiap]

But a change after the 2012 EOYT and pre BIL is just about the worst imaginable time to make a change.

Nup. You don't stick with failure upon failure upon failure.

No time like the present. Best possible time to make the change is ASAP.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Think Dingo may have earned a stay of execution.

 

[gel]

I don't see how that game changed anything though. The fundamental issues are still present, most obviously the inability to convert pressure into decent points. I would say the defensive pattern the wobs had today was pretty ordinary as well - they opened up quite a few times with only scrambling defence being the difference (a sign of heart - not skill or structure).

 

[Schadenfreude]

Think Dingo may have earned a stay of execution.

By being forced into picking some players in their better positions, and not having time to fuck them up?

Don't worry he did plenty of shit coaching at half time.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

We'll never know, but a loss against the Soap Dodgers along with another limp performance would almost have guaranteed he would be gone.

Not saying that there was coaching brilliance on display tonight, but just that the pressure will be off him.

 

[Jets]

If they struggle against the Italians and loose to the Welsh, who aren't playing well, then his position doesn't look so good. Injuries and the playing group showing more commitment saved them tonight. If England took their shots at goal in the second half it could well have been a different story.
I am really happy that the Wallabies but more of Deans worries me.

 

[Scarfman]

I want a new coach for the Lions tour.

I want an Australian to hold the coaching record.

For the first time in my life I'm actually barracking against the Wallabies.

I know, I know, condemn at will. But it's beyond my control. I woke up this morning soundly disappointed.

 

[rugbyskier]

Think Dingo may have earned a stay of execution.

I think you're right but "a swallow does not a summer make". The systemic problems are still there. They still don't look like scoring multiple tries in a match and Deans is still making the mistake of not substituting players early enough. Polota-Nau should have come off twenty minutes earlier when he got that head knock, but Deans kept him on to lose the next three lineouts because he was in la-la land.

 

[Joe Blow]

Surely the decision has already been made (or not). We cannot limp from poor to adequate performance with the ARU changing their mind about this each time. The problems still do exist and changes are being forced on Deans that have actually improved the balance of the side. The consistency is still not there.

He should go. Time to move on.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Scarfman, When I first saw your new avatar, I didn't really get it. I had just started watching the Darkness vs the Azurri and the score was 13 - 7 or so aproaching oranges.

I got my hopes up that you had some inside scoop on the result, as the game wasn't being shown live on Fox. Unfortunately as it approaches full time with the score at 42 Darkness Italy 10 with 79 gone, I have come to realise that an Italian victory over the Darkness was not the reason.

I now realise that the avatar change is part of your efforts to celebrate the demise of an ex-Darknesser now coaching the Men in Gold.

 

[RedsHappy]

Unfortunately most posters by anguish or innocently are missing the fundamental point: over at least the last two years, the ARU has made it perfectly, indeed unyieldingly, clear that it is generally happy with the standards of Deans' coaching and its outcomes. Only recently upon JON's resignation, the ARU Chairman declared that he/it was 'very happy' with Robbie Deans. After the RWC, the ARU issued no statement of regret or real concern over the outcome to rugby fans, it just moved on.

The ARU either believes that better standards than those achieved by Deans are essentially not possible, or that no better alternative is available, or, by self-preserving group-think, it refuses to admit error and values the preservation of its own face and 'position at the head of rugby' above any other value or standard.

The fact that, or facts like, 75% of 12,000 Fairfax rugby readers agreed that Deans should go appears to have no impact whatever on ARU thinking. Rather, its actual demonstrable course of conduct is that, after five years of Deans, it continues to know best what is right for the code and its fans.

 

[Paradox]

Deans needs to show his veterans some respect. Sharpe got booted out of the squad a few years ago. Moore doesn't start now. Smith was fvcked off. Experience wins big games.

 

[Garry Owen]

Because of his performance, niceties should be put aside.

The interviews should begin immediately, and the final round should take place as soon as Dingo is back in the country. Deans should have to watch it via cctv, so as he has no input on the outcome, but still made aware of the decision. He must undderstand that the NZRU's plan to sabotage our sport has finished, and the corner has been turned.
He then should be escorted by border security to the nearest Air NZ check out point.

 

[rugbysmartarse]

Scarfman, When I first saw your new avatar, I didn't really get it. I had just started watching the Darkness vs the Azurri and the score was 13 - 7 or so aproaching oranges.

I got my hopes up that you had some inside scoop on the result, as the game wasn't being shown live on Fox. Unfortunately as it approaches full time with the score at 42 Darkness Italy 10 with 79 gone, I have come to realise that an Italian victory over the Darkness was not the reason.

I now realise that the avatar change is part of your efforts to celebrate the demise of an ex-Darknesser now coaching the Men in Gold.

I'm just happy there is another (albeit temporary) azzuri fan on the site.