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RWC Pool C - Australia v Wales - 5AM 25 Sep AEST

Dan54

Tim Horan (67)
Happy to hear Jones is in talks to coach Japan. Hopefully he takes McLellan with him. A Banker and a Pom. No wonder we had our worst ever World Cup.
I seriously doubt whether Japan will want Eddie now with the leak of him going in a secretive manner etc behind RA's back. They are pretty keen on face etc!
 

stillmissit

Chilla Wilson (44)
With the advantage of 24 hours, I am thinking and hoping that the biggest lesson from this disaster(hopefully) is that the ARU get the message that you can't buy success, you have to work for it. Mclennan buying in Eddie and running around arguing the toss with League and paying top money for a young Joseph Sua'ali'i is the kind of rank stupidity wealthy people make.
 

GTPIH

Ted Thorn (20)
There is that glimmer of hope, unlikely but we need to put a cricket score on Portugal just in case. Fiji will have played Georgia beforehand so they will know if it’s a possibility.
Plus Fiji has to get no BP v Georgia
 

Goosestep

Syd Malcolm (24)
Maybe cause once upon a time Union was so strong to almost match with League. The decline of a giant is always delight of their rivalries

Meanwhiles Socceroos, Matildas, always have been the underdogs so a semifinal for them is a victory.

Also you have to add the stuff about private schoolboys who play Rugby and public schoolboys who play League
You forgot to add the part where the league stars send their kids to those very same private schools ..
 

wamberal99

Johnnie Wallace (23)
NRL media reporting today he might be having second thoughts. Which could just be supposition, but would be a big saving on the bottom line
The money thing is arguable, the story is that the funds for the kid are private money from some rich geezer. Mind you, it would be better if the geezer put the funds to use buying (or retaining) some big strong forwards.
 

Lorenzo

Colin Windon (37)
Don't get me started on this point. We should be looking to the NH for guidance as how to move our professionalisation and structures along. But fuck me I don't think the answer is to try and import their attitude towards the on-field product. They have an absolutely gash idea of what rugby should look like (am talking about the game itself, laws etc. not the competitions and structure surrounding it). More generally, I'll maintain that the talent base in the South continues to shit all over the North. There's a reason all the 6 nations sides are chock-a-block full of talent that the South didn't develop - we continue to produce sporting talent, they are better at maximising it in a professional environment.

The attitude in certain circles online e.g. Reddit Rugby Union which is an absolute dumpster fire of a-grade retard level opinions towards cards never ceases to blow my mind. They are objectively a blight on our game but the way some types on there carry on you would think they want to see more cards, not less.

i'll admit that i don't watch a tremendous amount of NH club football and i acknowledge some of the refereeing is a bit wonky but the tests between NH teams are pretty hard charging these days and they run the footy as much, and quote often more capably, than Australia?
 

PhilClinton

Geoff Shaw (53)
With the advantage of 24 hours, I am thinking and hoping that the biggest lesson from this disaster(hopefully) is that the ARU get the message that you can't buy success, you have to work for it. Mclennan buying in Eddie and running around arguing the toss with League and paying top money for a young Joseph Sua'ali'i is the kind of rank stupidity wealthy people make.

Isn't the problem now that we don't have the time to develop decent players? Regardless of how much money we pump into programs and divert from other avenues, it won't reap any tangible rewards for 10 years. We have a home RWC in 4 years.

The fact is the current blokes in gold aren't up to it. We should have pumped money into pathways and proper coaching etc 20 years ago, not as a reaction to this RWC.

Now RA are backed into a corner where we need to fill the ranks with blokes who can actually win some farking games of rugby and it's looking increasingly likely those blokes aren't going to come from our own current crop of players.
 

The Nomad

Bob Davidson (42)
Just got home last night from being over there for both the Fiji and Wales games.
Haven’t read all this thread, so please excuse any previously mentioned things.

The vibe after the Fiji game was we got physically beaten and a lot of people over there from other countries weren’t that surprised by the result.

The Wales game however was a completely different story, even the Welsh supporters were in shock. Plenty of banter out on the town the night before, but they didn’t even really give it to us as a group of Wallaby supporters after the game, they mostly felt sorry for us and could feel our pain.

Chatted to quite a few Welsh supporters after the game and they mostly said the same thing……… you don’t all of a sudden get that shit at rugby and none could believe we gave EJ (Eddie Jones) the coaching gig. As I’m sure has already been mentioned, Wales were at a similar low only 12 months ago, so their supporters could definitely feel our pain.

From a game point of view, we had tickets fairly high up looking straight down the field and the thing that stood out for me was our complete lack of attack shape. I couldn’t see anything that resembled a plan. At times in the Fiji game we had more guys either out of position or still on the ground from the previous phase than we had as attacking options. The few that were left as attacking options were then fodder for a very aggressive Fijian defensive line. Against Wales we just looked clueless. Don’t think we’ve ever lost to Wales by anything in the double digits before, yet alone 30+.

Not going to blame players, they all looked to be hurting big time after both games, devastated after Wales. Genuinely concerned for some about their mental health after that result and being in what many have described as a very high pressure environment under EJ (Eddie Jones).

At this point in time, very happy I live in Brisbane and at least have this weekend to look forward to!
 

wamberal99

Johnnie Wallace (23)
Very interesting to get something from sombody who was actually there. Our attacking shape is one thing, but our defensive shape against Wales looked worse to me. More holes than a mosquito net (just for Brisbane!) The Welsh seemed to sail though whenever they wanted to.
 

The Nomad

Bob Davidson (42)
Very interesting to get something from sombody who was actually there. Our attacking shape is one thing, but our defensive shape against Wales looked worse to me. More holes than a mosquito net (just for Brisbane!) The Welsh seemed to sail though whenever they wanted to.
It was pretty simple really, we were soundly beaten at the breakdown in both games. Left us either short on numbers or out of alignment in both attack and defence and resulted in us being poor in both facets of play.

Personally, I feel we have lost balance with our forward pack. There seems to be a bias towards picking strong ball runners all the way through the pathways in Australia. Whilst being a strong ball runner and instinctively good at the breakdown shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, it does appear to be rather uncommon. Breakdown skills are obviously coached, but any hesitation or drop of intensity at Test level gets punished. The grit that just keeps moving bodies and holds a team together is just not there at the moment.

Haven’t seen the stats, but would imagine our penalties conceded while in possession would have been at an all time high?
 

Bullrush

John Hipwell (52)
It was pretty simple really, we were soundly beaten at the breakdown in both games. Left us either short on numbers or out of alignment in both attack and defence and resulted in us being poor in both facets of play.

Personally, I feel we have lost balance with our forward pack. There seems to be a bias towards picking strong ball runners all the way through the pathways in Australia. Whilst being a strong ball runner and instinctively good at the breakdown shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, it does appear to be rather uncommon. Breakdown skills are obviously coached, but any hesitation or drop of intensity at Test level gets punished. The grit that just keeps moving bodies and holds a team together is just not there at the moment.

Haven’t seen the stats, but would imagine our penalties conceded while in possession would have been at an all time high?
From my limited experience watching my son play since Yr 4, this is a problem. Parents and coaches get enamoured with a strong ball runner and don't stress the importance and absolute necessity of also working at the breakdown.
 

mark_s

Chilla Wilson (44)
From a game point of view, we had tickets fairly high up looking straight down the field and the thing that stood out for me was our complete lack of attack shape. I couldn’t see anything that resembled a plan. At times in the Fiji game we had more guys either out of position or still on the ground from the previous phase than we had as attacking options. The few that were left as attacking options were then fodder for a very aggressive Fijian defensive line. Against Wales we just looked clueless. Don’t think we’ve ever lost to Wales by anything in the double digits before, yet alone 30+.
Nick Bishop has written a piece at Rugbypass focusing on our back field position play v Wales - essentially how we had players out of position (seemingly by design) and it was a shambles.
 

Drew

Bob Davidson (42)
From my limited experience watching my son play since Yr 4, this is a problem. Parents and coaches get enamoured with a strong ball runner and don't stress the importance and absolute necessity of also working at the breakdown.
Yeah, France/Ireland seem to be whoever’s there first hits the breakdown, doesn’t matter who. We have these systems to get it to specific players, so those players seem to be waiting to run the ball instead of hitting the rucks. Makes our attack easy to read and our breakdown easy to attack.
 
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