Rod McQueen couldn't coach

I was there on Friday as well Dan. Howard was good but the way he talked about macqueen was done with a little spite, he didn't really acknowledge that macqueen had good points as well, which is strange considering a lot of the questions to Howard were about his role in the acb.

My god there were some stupid questions asked of him though.

He's got nothing to be spiteful about - his first test attempt to step Bunce or Little should have been the end of his carreer

Jeez, I wish I knew as little about coaching and still won nearly 80% of test matches I coached in, the Bleddie and the RWC. I'm a fan of both Howard and MacQueen, so I find Pat's comments a little uncharitable.

Spite was probably not the right word. More that he seemed dismissive of Macqueen's standing in the game.

think it was Bunce and Michael Jones - the two best tacklers in world rugby at the time. Howard was in the team off the back of one flick pass he did in the NSW QLD game that year - didn't really move on from there.

and he seems to be doing a good job at Cricket Australia....and might do a good job at the ARU?

Look who also coached the NSW state side in the amater days leading up to the 1991 world cup, also a quality "team". I recall they were the only team to beat Auckland that year, and I do believe his coaching at state level had an impact on our world cup success.
I'm sure there is more than just good people skills, it will be tuff to acheive what he acheived.
Theres understanding the game, game plans, and people mgmt they all go hand in hand. Then there is leadership!
Then his record at the Brumbies, and on the international stage. History speaks.

But yet again he surrounded himself with assistants whose knowledge he respected: not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wasn't it MacQueen who moved Larkham from 15 to 10? Just on that alone he deserves to be considered a great coach.

Nick, there wasn't a tribe of assistants back in those amater days, but yes he did surround himself with key people - and managed a good team.

I had a chat with Larkhams a couple of years ago and asked him about this and his response shocked me a bit as he basically said Rod asked him if he would play ten and Stephen said he didn't want to at all and even tried to make mistakes at training so he would be moved back to fullback. Amazing how it turned out.

yep, that's right - the difference between a good club and test player.

short of pace for test level is my recollection

As far as I remember, we won the Tri-Nations in Jake's first year in charge? While it is true that each of the three teams won both their home games and lost both away games that season and the Boks only won on bonus points, there was certainly a significant improvement in the way the Boks played that year after the disaster the previous year.

69 percent win ratio in 2004. 2006 we lost to France, 49-0 against Australia lost to NZ, England and Ireland

I think he finished with an overall win ratio of 66%. So if you judge on winning ratio's, he was more successful in his first year than any other year.

No. He won the WC in 2007. Can't really beat that. Tri Nations was won on BP in 04.

You obviously come from the school of thought that rugby works in four year cycles and you are only judged on your success by your results at the RWC. The results inbetween those 4 years are meaningless as they can be attributed to "building for the World Cup".