Wallabies 2023

[dillyboy]

It's interesting that of all the Wallabies coaches of the professional era, Jones is the one to get at another crack.

Would you have thought the coach who decimated Australia's set-piece and left the team in a smoldering pile of ruins at the end of 2005 would be the one to warrant a second-term with this team? I still believe Ewen McKenzie was the anointed one - you only have to look at the respective state's of the national side when Jones departed in 2005, compared to when McKenzie 'exited stage left' at the end of 2014.

The Wallabies were a festering ruin at the conclusion of Eddie's tenure. Meanwhile Cheika inherited a refined & polished world-class Wallabies outfit from Ewen McKenzie who's hard work from the previous two seasons helped culminated in a world cup final result.

You see real leadership is thinking ahead of the moment you're in.

With Eddie's Wallabies & England tenures we've seen remarkable initial success followed by mass fallout & prolonged instability, his team's have finished up being plagued with inconsistent, incoherent and unstable selections & tactics at the pointy end of his tenure.

Combined with his highly unsustainable man-management methods, constantly demanding standards, with an insular focus on getting success now (but f*** the team after I'm gone!) so leaving the following coach to pick up the scorched pieces and start from scratch again.

Proper leadership is catering for beyond your term in power in the position you're in and McKenzie's developments put Australia in a good stead for the future, he put in place strong foundations through his pragmatic coaching and selections in 2013/14 & his contributions over that brief tenure can be very much attributed to their subsequent success the following year in 2015.

Basically this is my not so subtle way of implying that if any previous Wallabies coach deserved a 2nd-term it was Ewen, not Eddie!

Yeah but Ewan isn't coaching anymore - Eddie is.....

(I agree Ewan was shafted but he's lost to Rugby unfortunately)

 

[Slim 293]

Lessons learned... don't go upsetting AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)'s mummy.

 

[KOB1987]

https://thesportingbase.com/nrl/roosters-could-lose-Sua'ali'i-to-rugby-soon/

 

[TSR]

What were the tactics? I was too young to really understand the game in depth back then

We used to collapse scrums, wheel scrums, use soft engagements - anything to avoid the scrum as a contest. Our props were picked for work rate around the field and it didn’t matter they couldn’t hold the scrum up. Then the refs starting penalising collapsed and illegal wheeling. We paid for it for years.

 

[RugbyReg]

https://thesportingbase.com/nrl/roosters-could-lose-Sua'ali'i-to-rugby-soon/

is Sam Walker contracted long term? Was an awesome schoolboy rugby player at 10...

 

[Homer]

Big question is what happens to the assistants? Brumbies will be pissed if they are dumped with nowhere to go except overseas.

 

[RugbyReg]

We used to collapse scrums, wheel scrums, use soft engagements - anything to avoid the scrum as a contest. Our props were picked for work rate around the field and it didn’t matter they couldn’t hold the scrum up. Then the refs starting penalising collapsed and illegal wheeling. We paid for it for years.

so at the time Eddie worked out that scrums only accounted for x% of the game so only devoted x% of training to them. In fairness he never had too many great props to work with (Baxter, Young, Stiles, Dunning, Noriega, Darwin). All solid but none excellent.

He's obviously evolved his game because the likes of Genge, Sinckler, Stuart etc were all very prominent in his time for England

 

[Derpus]

We used to collapse scrums, wheel scrums, use soft engagements - anything to avoid the scrum as a contest. Our props were picked for work rate around the field and it didn’t matter they couldn’t hold the scrum up. Then the refs starting penalising collapsed and illegal wheeling. We paid for it for years.

We still have a reputation for having a shite scrum. But as RR points out - England have had a good scrum under EJ (Eddie Jones) and some great props.

I always thought Sinkler was a more disciplined version of Tupou.

 

[Dctarget]

https://thesportingbase.com/nrl/roosters-could-lose-Sua'ali'i-to-rugby-soon/

Assuming Beale retires after this year, Waratahs would look great with him at 15.

 

[MungoMan]

We used to collapse scrums, wheel scrums, use soft engagements - anything to avoid the scrum as a contest. Our props were picked for work rate around the field and it didn’t matter they couldn’t hold the scrum up. Then the refs starting penalising collapsed and illegal wheeling. We paid for it for years.

If Bill Young picks up the Wobs scrum coach gig, we should defintiely worry.

 

[wamberal]

If Jones can solve our injury problem that alone will be worth it.

 

[stillmissit]

Throw that out the window at this point. We need the best squad possible. If they need a hard cap on it make it 8 or a something that makes sure we aren’t leaving someone behind who is better than another member of the squad.

Agree this will happen Ghost. If RA agreed to this and I was a promising young Super Rugby player, I would have my agent on the phone to France and Japan in a microsecond.
One thing you can be sure about Eddie he will use older players, he'll give the youngsters a few minutes here and there but then forget them.

 

[Slim 293]

Agree this will happen Ghost. If Rugby Australia agreed to this and I was a promising young Super Rugby player, I would have my agent on the phone to France and Japan in a microsecond.
One thing you can be sure about Eddie he will use older players, he'll give the youngsters a few minutes here and there but then forget them.

Who are all these youngsters Jones forgot about?

 

[TSR]

Just to be reiterate - I’m not actually concerned Jones is going to come in with a tactic to de-power our scrum again.

 

[stillmissit]

Who are all these youngsters Jones forgot about?

If you look at his record in his last gig here, my impressions were that he worked McQueens team into the ground, he brought in several young players and gave them a 5min cameo and then we never saw them again. There were obviously new players coming in but mainly after retirements and injuries. He has done a similar thing with England he is not a team builder he uses the best at the time and sticks with them. That is why when he leaves the following coach has to start from the bottom.
Were you around in those days, Derpus mentioned you were old.

 

[Ignoto]

Agree this will happen Ghost. If Rugby Australia agreed to this and I was a promising young Super Rugby player, I would have my agent on the phone to France and Japan in a microsecond.
One thing you can be sure about Eddie he will use older players, he'll give the youngsters a few minutes here and there but then forget them.

26.4 and 27.3. The squads average age for Eddies 2003 RWC squad and Chieka's 2019 Squad (Eddie's 2019 Squad was 26.7)

 

[Dan54]

Interesting I just had a quick work out, but in last year Wallabies had a 35.7 winning record, and Poms a 34.2%. Someone might want to check my figues I not convinced I did it right, or remembered all games.

 

[Rebel man]

We used to collapse scrums, wheel scrums, use soft engagements - anything to avoid the scrum as a contest. Our props were picked for work rate around the field and it didn’t matter they couldn’t hold the scrum up. Then the refs starting penalising collapsed and illegal wheeling. We paid for it for years.

Cheers. I can’t see that working now but when you could get away with it definitely would have delivered a competitive advantage

 

[Slim 293]

If you look at his record in his last gig here, my impressions were that he worked McQueens team into the ground, he brought in several young players and gave them a 5min cameo and then we never saw them again. There were obviously new players coming in but mainly after retirements and injuries. He has done a similar thing with England he is not a team builder he uses the best at the time and sticks with them. That is why when he leaves the following coach has to start from the bottom.
Were you around in those days, Derpus mentioned you were old.

I'm not old, but I was certainly around...

I'm not really that obsessed about what he did almost 20 years ago, but I have no recollection of him discarding any young players.

In fact, there were a lot of players who made their test debuts in his time.

 

[RugbyReg]

If you look at his record in his last gig here, my impressions were that he worked McQueens team into the ground, he brought in several young players and gave them a 5min cameo and then we never saw them again. There were obviously new players coming in but mainly after retirements and injuries. He has done a similar thing with England he is not a team builder he uses the best at the time and sticks with them. That is why when he leaves the following coach has to start from the bottom.
Were you around in those days, Derpus mentioned you were old.

Wallaby debutants under Jones. The bolded ones are ones that never played another test under another Wallaby coach.

WHo are the young cameos? Bartholomeuz, Kanaar and Mackay could be closest to that but all were deep injury covers.

Graeme Bond (debuted v SAF 2001)
Steve Kefu (v Wales 2001)
Wendell Sailor (v France 2002)
Nathan Sharpe (v France 2002)
Matt Rogers (v France 2002)
Sean Hardman (v France 2002)
Dan Vickerman (v France 2002)
Adam Freier (v Argentina 2002)
David Croft (v Argentina 2002)
Matt Giteau (v England 2002)
Mark Bartholomeuz (v ITaly 2002)
Morgan Turinui (v Ireland 2003)
Lote Tuqiri (v Ireland 2003)
Dan Heenan (v Wales 2003)
Al BAxter (v New Zealand 2003)
Matt Dunning (v Namibia 2003)
John Roe (v Namibia 2003)
Clyde Rathbone (v Scotland 2004)
Radike Samo (v Scotland 2004)
Matt Henjack (v England 2004)
Nick Henderson (v Pac Islanders 2004)
Mark Chisholm (v Scotland 2004)
Stephen Hoiles (v Scotland 2004)
Rocky Elsom (v Samoa 2005)
Stephen Moore (v Samoa 2005)
Hugh McMeniman (v Samoa 2005)
MArk Gerrard (v Italy 2005)
Al Campbell (v France 2005)
Drew Mitchell (v South Africa 2005)
Adam Ashley-Cooper (v South Africa 2005)
Al Kanaar (v New Zealand 2005)
Lloyd Johansson (v New Zealand 2005)
Lachlan Mackay (v New Zealand 2005)
Greg Holmes (v France 2005)
Tatafu Polota-Nau (v England 2005)
Scott Fava (v England 2005)
David Fitter (v Irelnd 2005)