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Since 2004 to mid-2016, the ARU, from many hundreds of destiny-shaping decisions it has made, has only made 6 good ones: One, the appointment of M Cheika as Wallaby HC (though note this was essentially the only decision they could have made in the face of the Link/Patston debacle and the need...

What would be equally enlivening - and maybe equally enlightening - is for us to place alongside these odds another category of odds, namely - odds that this HC candidate will get the Reds into S18 2018 Finals (namely, massive improvement in Reds' w-l fortunes in under 2 full seasons) - odds...

Whilst appointing Thompson as HC of the Reds would be entirely possible given many of the appalling institutional practices at the heart of Australian rugby governance, such a step would ensure the QRU's second de facto bankruptcy in under a decade. But perhaps you penned this here more for...

Appropriate selection criteria weighting for a new Reds HC (assuming that saving the Reds from endless rugby ignominy and commercial bankruptcy is the objective): - proven track record of success at Super or national or equivalent levels: 8/10 - demonstrated ability to build a crack total...

I'd likely be delighted with all except Stiles. Apart from a new HC who's demonstrated a proven record of success as HC at elite levels - and Stiles is a zillion miles from that status - we also need an HC who has the personal self-confidence and gravitas to clean out every last trace of...

Don't worry about our U20 players for 2017. Nothing fundamental will change in the results or our annual post-U20s season bemoaning and regretting until Thompson goes as HC for the national U20s. He's been a clear failure in this program and it's only classic ARU cronyism and its typical...

Yes, Simon, thanks for that post - there was a lot right in that 2012 article. Just a reminder though as we look back to the Reds World of 2012: it was clear even then that the 2011 victory had already induced the drug of unearned hubris and a tendency to arrogance within the Ballymore...

The whole coaching set-up is retarded - 'co-interim head coaches' - FFS. This was doomed to disaster from the word go. What: 13 Reds games under this model and a 23% w-l ratio including consistently appalling skills levels, unfixed kicking woes, poor attack patterns, uneven fitness, regular...

It was in a Zavos Roar column a few weeks ago.

'Chook' Fowler is a difficult and opinionated person, but many rate him as a brilliant rugby game and general strategist and further a very smart mental skills and sports team psychologist. I posted years back re the actual 'star' Reds player that did not take kindly to one of Chook's 2012...

What's terrifying me is that Wayne Smith in The Australian reports that MO'C is the leading candidate for Reds' HC. He's shown nothing. The Reds' attack is a mirror of RG's 'give it QC (Quade Cooper)' MO, except replace that with Kerevi. Can someone wake me from this ever-worsening nightmare?

It's the very antithesis of the process that selected and appointed RG. In that it is very encouraging, in theory. What's doubly encouraging is that the implication of this far better HC selection process is that painful lessons from the RG era's start and finish have been learnt. Judge the...

Just re kicking mentors, specialist kicking coaching etc: http://www.espn.com.au/rugby/story/_/id/16514574/owen-farrell-pays-tribute-jonny-wilkinson-kicking-england-series-whitewash

It's well-known in golf swing how previously good and effective technique from even the very best pros can quite suddenly, or more gradually, deteriorate. From either new mental pressures or very subtle changes in bio-mechanical stance and mobility. The original good swing technique then has to...

Correct Jets. The EJ (Eddie Jones) story so far: a wonderful example of the power and absolute criticality of coaching in elite rugby. And the immediate impact that genuinely good HCs and specialist coaches can and do have quite quickly. Link had a massive impact on the 2009 Reds squad he inherited with...

Additionally Scrubber and moreover people seem to have entirely forgotten that QC (Quade Cooper) in his golden year of 2011 in fact played a wonderfully versatile set of 10 roles when adapting to the varied games plans so masterfully designed by Link and his coaching group that year. In fact it was the...

Interesting that EJ (Eddie Jones) himself affirms (link below) that the England attack in T2 was 'almost non-existent'. Of course it was. I don't think I've ever seen a Test team so overwhelmingly neutralise another for all of 80 as well as England did to Aus in T2. And Larkham's homogeneous version of...

Spot on Michael. I have been talking about this for ages. One day it will be realised that 'the invisible player' in these two Test debacles was/is our Wallaby coaching group, and so very clearly its depth and calibre have been found wanting in 2016. It's a bigger problem than some of the poor...

HJ - the issue will come down to whether the Force - after being reamed to near-death by two incompetent HCs in sequence - is on the edge of an irreversible death spiral, or not. The ARU - the Force's new owner - cannot afford to go back to the 2006 model of paying big $ for a new core group...

The chronicle of a death foretold. The appointment of Foley as Force HC was if anything even more disastrous for the always-fragile Force than the catastrophe of Graham as HC of the Reds. The Reds have the local support base to permit some kind of credible recovery, the Force have a fraction...