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Their obvious weakness was failing to pick players that everyone on the Internet agreed about. Unfortunately Moore, Slipper and Folau can only do so much. Now that we all agree on Kuridrani, at least it means four players can take the field.

How is a lock who is the biggest player in Super rugby, has great hands, but can't jump, "average" in any meaningful sense? Surely he's a complete outlier?

Despite his box kicking, White has an excellent pass off the ground. There's no reason why Genia can't as well, provided Richard Graham puts it in the game plan at the Reds next year. With all the running talent in the Reds backline he should.

People are asking for two inconsistent things: testing out theories (as long as they're not Chieka's theories!) and a balanced side. We can't always have both.

Horne played on the wing all this year in the winning Supe team, which also happened to be the one that scored the most points. Horne himself scored some very good tries including one pearler. And he's a beast on defence. Not a shoehorne at all.

Foley is a classic running flyhalf. He's very fast and can make breaks. He's comfortable playing flat, which provides opportunities in a dual playmaker configuration. His short passing game is good. His long passing game needs to be developed. Despite what peolpe say on here, his defence is very...

So you're writing off Foley's potential as well as his current abilities? Sheesh, that's tough. We could easily have done the same for To'omua and Lilo after a few lean years at the start of their careers, but most people held faith with their ability to get better, and they have.

It'll be an interesting game up front, as well as in the backs (regardless of our backline selections) since our fast backrowers give us a much wider umbrella in attack, provided we can get quick ball. The breakdowns will be where the game is won and lost, I reckon.

Although there's a germ of truth in what Lorenzo says (a small germ, perhaps, since the original post was clearly ntended to be sarcastic - let's award it a poliovirus which so small it was once deemed invisible). We all know that consistently winning comes from focusing on excellence in...

I agree. The 13 needs to be a good ball player. AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) isn't.

That's a fair point: numbers on backs mean relatively little in Australian rugby currently, perhaps less so than any other national team. It's about channels now with players running in several of them. I guess what Dwyer means with Kuridrani is that he wants the sledgehammer running more at the...

As always with Dwyer, it's worth paying attention to the content of his arguments. Older posters may remember this, but when he was advocating Beale at 13, it was part of a wider system of advocating an elusive, playmaking 13 and a crash-ball 12, which he described as reversing the traditional...

If world cup winning coaches always agreed with people on the Internet, there'd be no need for them.

Seriously? Palu worked absolutely fine in Chiekball at the Waratahs. There seems to be a mystery about what Chieka's "style" is. It's just rugby basics: drive hard then go wide at pace. The only difference between the current norm is faster realignmemt and less kicking.

Bob Dwyer has been picking Beale at 13 for two years, as an aside.

Well, he is the fullback.

No: no one is saying that. we suddenly find ourselves in a development phase too close to the world cup. But we're not in a bad position, despite what some Australian fans might say while bitterly contemplating their post-Ireland cornflakes, or foreigners looking for a cheap rise. The time to...

That seems unlikely. If the Wobs are playing Chiekball (as played at the Waratahs) then driving forward play before going wide is the cornerstone of the (very simple) system. Perhaps Chieka has been listening to the pundits who say that idea can't possibly work at test level. Or he's just...

If the rest of World rugby start kicking to Folau after a few rare fluffs, then Wales will have done us an even bigger favor than losing to the Wobs for the last ten games.

Careful, or the mods will be directing you to the Wallaby positivity thread. I likewise thought the Wallabies played reasonably well against a fired-up and improving Ireland team, who will give the RWC a shake. It was an extremely entertaining (and in stretches also very good) game of rugby.