Author: Bob Dwyer

My apologies for the late column, but I have just spent the week-end in the Queensland country town of Goondawindi, on the border with NSW, about four hours drive west of Brisbane. With Chris “Buddha” Handy, ex-All Black captain, Wayne “Buck” Shelford and World Cup winning Wallaby centre, Daniel Herbert, I attended their fund-raising dinner to support their Under-12 team’s upcoming tour of New Zealand. A highlight for me was the short speeches delivered by two of the boys, who both spoke of their love of the game and the personal qualities that it develops in them and their team-mates.…

Since time began, or so it seems, our northern hemisphere cousins have been extolling the qualities of the Six Nations tournament – even when it was the Four Nations, and then the Five Nations. No matter how the number of competing nations has grown, they remain correct. It is a great tournament – and this year it was superb. The venues, the crowds, the passion and excitement, the sheer quality of the play – all were there for all to see. I loved it. Thanks to the worldwide television access, we can watch the games pretty much anywhere – well…

Bob Dwyer reviews the weekends Super Rugby and France versus Ireland in the Six Nations

Bob Dwyer reviews how the Tahs managed to lose yet again

Australia’s Wallabies bowed out of Rugby World Cup 2011 on Sunday night, beaten by a much better All Blacks team, and the whole New Zealand nation breathed a massive sigh of relief. They love their All Blacks side over here – openly and unabashedly – and the terror of another early exit had weighed heavily upon them. Their team were well ready for the challenge and the Wallabies, undoubtedly weakened by their superhuman effort against South Africa the previous weekend, were not. We needed to be at our very best to be in with a shout, and perhaps we also…

How did we win that match? Virtually no ball, no field position, dusted in the lineout, creaky at the scrum, kicking out of hand average at best. Our defence was fantastic, that’s how! So Phil Blake, as our defence coach, you can take a well-earned bow. Actually, you can also take a much-needed rest: you did nearly as much work as the players, running back and forth with the water and, from my observation, with advice and encouragement. To the Wallabies players also, you can all take a bow. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a more courageous tackling…

Australia played some quality rugby in the first 40 minutes against Russia on Saturday, then fell into something of a shambles when the (advisable) changes were made at the break. The tournament-ending injury to Drew Mitchell was heartbreaking, for him and for us, but the return of David Pocock, the quality of Berrick Barnes and the rejuvenation of Radike Samo — albeit selected on the wing — gave us a much-needed lift. The Wallabies began at pace, full of intent and with loads of accuracy in their execution — hallelujah! Lines of running were almost straight, passes were in front…

The massive injury toll aside, there were many positives to come out of the Wallabies’ impressive 67–5 victory over the improving USA in Wellington on Friday night. But rather than providing some clarity for the Australian selectors, I think the game has provided some huge headaches. The best starting XV has looked pretty settled for some weeks now, but a decline in the most recent form of some players, and some very positive signs from others returning from injury, have provided plenty of options. Some of them look decidedly better options than the status quo of the Tri Nations championship…

Apologies for the lateness of my view on the Australia versus Ireland match. I have been in Texas, USA, conducting Coaching Camps and Workshops and have only just now been able to watch the match. After having read a fair bit of comment, I was expecting to see a rout by the Irish but, instead, I saw more of what we’ve seen from this Wallabies team for most of the last few years. Indeed it was only in the last two Tri Nations matches that we thought that we were seeing the emergence of a new-look Wallabies team – one…

The Wallabies made a great start to their World Cup campaign with a decisive 32 points to 6 victory over the always difficult Italians. Their performance had flaws, for sure, but I know from experience that a team needs to build into a tournament, to work gradually and systematically to peak level when it’s needed. A more difficult opponent along the way early in the tournament can be a problem – just as Ireland poses next weekend – but the team must be capable of over-coming this hurdle. For an assessment of the quality of Australia’s performance, just consider the…

There is a school of thought that seeks multiple phases of play as a path to breaching opposition defences. This is a mistake – remember the Brumbies of some years back who, in the final of the Super-12 against the Crusaders, achieved a number of periods of play with more than twenty phases each time. They failed to score from any of these and lost the match. Multi-phase plays, almost by definition, rarely ‘ask difficult questions’ of the defence. If a team can achieve a number of phases, with each one asking a difficult question, then a try is almost…

The Wallabies have played vastly improved rugby in recent weeks. After their poor display when soundly defeated by New Zealand in Auckland, they have improved the fundamentals of their game significantly. This has given them the results on the scoreboard that we have all applauded. Regular readers will know of my constant insistence on (i) accurate support play which gives viable options to the ball-carrier and/or numbers at the tackle contest, (ii) body-position and leg-drive which assists hugely in speed of recycle, and (iii) urgency of realignment of our attacking line to take full advantage of this ‘quick ball’. It…

Well, that’s the Tri Nations done and dusted for this year. Now for the big stage — RWC2011! The Wallabies inflicted a morale-busting defeat on New Zealand’s All Blacks on Saturday night at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. Take no notice of the ‘this defeat can only help us’ comments coming from the All Blacks’ camp. After a decisive loss, albeit with a B-team, to the Springboks one week ago in Port Elizabeth, they were determined to get their campaign back on the road and, despite an inspired second-half fight back, they were beaten by a better team. Shen was the…

 I often talk about attack not being about scoring tries, not about beating your man, nor making breaks. Attack ‘is about asking questions of the defence, and the more difficult the questions you ask, the more successful your attack will be.’ These are the opening remarks of my Coaching Manual – Essential Level Attack from Set Pieces. The All Blacks, in scoring the only try in their loss to the Springboks last weekend, certainly posed some difficult questions to the Springbok defence. The defence came up with a wrong answer in mid-field and the pace of Hosea Gear and Richard…

So the New Zealand All Blacks had made a truckload of changes to the team that trounced the Wallabies in Auckland. So they were eight or more players short of their first-choice run-on team. So they had never — but never — won in Port Elizabeth. They still expected to win! And a lot of good judges also expected them to win. Well, they didn’t win. In fact this was their second-biggest losing margin in South Africa. They lost the first half 5–15 and the second 0–3. They never had the lead, from start to finish. It sounds like a…

I’ve talked a fair bit in recent weeks about support play. I praised the accuracy of the Samoan support play a few weeks back, but I have been critical of the lack of accuracy and urgency of the Wallabies in this vital aspect of play. The Wallabies have some outstanding attacking players – genuine world-class. Quality support play that applies maximum pressure on defences at and around the tackle contest will provide genuine continuity – with options – and subsequently space for our attack. This is essential if we are to challenge for the Webb Ellis Cup. These video clips…

The Wallabies were handed a tough assignment in Durban last night for their third Tri Nations match against the real Springboks team — one strengthened by 13 changes to the run-on side. With no sleep at all and a 3:30am departure from their Auckland hotel last Sunday, they endured a 26-hour journey, lost luggage (this is becoming the norm for RSA) and the normal jet-lag problem. That they were to run out convincing winners — albeit by a close points margin of only 14–9 — speaks volumes for the team’s courage and commitment. The reconstituted Springboks team were undoubtedly rusty…

In Dwyer’s View this week, I hope I left no doubt about my opinion of the dreadful quality of the Wallabies’ attack. Our cross-field running was atrocious. It’s rarely good, but this was pretty well our worst ever. In this analysis I’ve looked at one incident early in the match, where a Wallaby try was definitely a possibility with quality attack. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyuu6s2pXfo[/youtube] Actually, the early part of this passage was reasonable, with some good tight play, parallel to touch; then a pick-and-go, an off-load and a quick recycle. We achieved excellent space with numbers, but then it all went horribly…

Message to Wallabies: ‘Enthusiasm, commitment and urgency are essential ingredients for quality performance and success, and the time to exhibit them is right from the kick-off!’ This may sound obvious but, not for the first time with this group, we saw none of these qualities until the dying minutes of the game at Eden Park. Not so for the All Blacks, who started as if their lives depended on it. The Aussie commentary team commented frequently on the speed and enthusiasm of the All Blacks, as if these were some extraordinary, rarely seen qualities. These are vital, essential, necessary components…

There are lots of things to admire about the All Blacks’ play. Their technique is excellent and they execute accurately – not always, as we can see in the final pass for this try, but most of the time. In this analysis of an attacking play, we go back again to the fundamental truth that ‘attack is about asking questions of the defence’ and the All Blacks certainly ask some difficult questions in this sequence of play – and from a 5 metre scrum! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Y1fB-4jmo[/youtube] To begin with, the All Blacks scrum was dominant and the first question was a…