Waratahs 2026

[Braveheart81]

Donaldson and Harrison were thrown in way too soon and had to learn on the run.

This is a bit of a tangent but these guys absolutely need to be playing Super Rugby in their early 20s if they are really aspiring to be stars. We (collectively) say that young players need to be held back and not exposed to high level rugby too soon but then lament that the guys we are playing against from the Northern Hemisphere have a huge amount more professional games of experience at a similar age.

It's absolutely true that these guys starting their career playing in a bad team have a tougher time of it but they also need to be playing.

 

[Homer]

I have been pondering why when every major side is working hard to improve line speed in defence; and the wobs sit back so passively

We can't deal with the line speed of the Lions, Ireland, England, the Boks, but we haven't decided to replicate it?

Laurie Fisher said in an interview that when Schmidt asked him to come on board and run defence , he said as long as you dont want a rush defence because thats not me!

SO giving big guys a full run up and a head of steam counts as defence now. I thought the Tahs showed them the benefit of at least have a shooter.

 

[Adam84]

Waratahs unpaid intern strikes again

 

[Tomthumb]

This is a bit of a tangent but these guys absolutely need to be playing Super Rugby in their early 20s if they are really aspiring to be stars. We (collectively) say that young players need to be held back and not exposed to high level rugby too soon but then lament that the guys we are playing against from the Northern Hemisphere have a huge amount more professional games of experience at a similar age.

It's absolutely true that these guys starting their career playing in a bad team have a tougher time of it but they also need to be playing.

Yeah I'd say the issue with these guys was not sticking with them. Granted Harrison had injuries, but the constant chopping and changing & playing them at fullback didn't help anything. They always seemed to be looking for the next big star as opposed to building the current guys

I hope they stick with Bowen and don't give up on him early. He has talent but needs time and patience

 

[Rob42]

Yeah I'd say the issue with these guys was not sticking with them. Granted Harrison had injuries, but the constant chopping and changing & playing them at fullback didn't help anything. They always seemed to be looking for the next big star as opposed to building the current guys

I hope they stick with Bowen and don't give up on him early. He has talent but needs time and patience

Hard to stick with one of those three guys when the other two were on the same level, always tempting to switch to an alternative when the going got tough. That's probably Bowen's advantage for 2026 - no obvious alternative at this stage.

 

[Tomthumb]

Hard to stick with one of those three guys when the other two were on the same level, always tempting to switch to an alternative when the going got tough. That's probably Bowen's advantage for 2026 - no obvious alternative at this stage.

Yeah 100% I get why they did it, I just think they ended up not getting the most out of any of them because of it

 

[Braveheart81]

Yeah 100% I get why they did it, I just think they ended up not getting the most out of any of them because of it

It's one of the problems with being a struggling side.

You can't exactly keep leaving out players who are very similar in quality on the basis that you want to focus development on one guy when it's not going well.