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Richo - can I gently refer you to Bruce Ross' 'golden law of posting sarcasm'. It goes something like this: the more sarcastic the piece, oddly, the more readers seem to conclude the author is deadly serious and take every word at face value. He swears by it.

Another good article re the matter of rugby kicking in general and BIL Test 1's kicking results in particular. I was interested in the O'Connor quote that the kicking on Saturday was a 'pretty tedious process really'. May give weight to The Plastic Paddy's post above re our kickers' attitude...

We all know from many years on these boards that Barnes at all levels has a distinguished history of aimless, wayward and poorly executed kicking under pressure. In this, he can be a very high risk of creating productive possession gifts for opposition, or gifts to commence 'free' counter...

Speaking personally, I find it highly reassuring that JO'C has today declared that "........it's back to the drawing board......." for the Wallabies' and his own planning for Test 2 in Melbourne...

As when The Pulveriser termed KB (Kurtley Beale) a 'national treasure', I find his odd reference to a formal assault charge leading to an arrest warrant regarding one his highest profile players 'just a storm in a teacup' rather disappointing, and certainly not the best judgement as the code's leader in Australia.

The clear progress of the Wallaby forwards is interesting. I doubt we would have said this much in 2011. It was in the 2012 home Wales series that I posted I thought that the new specialist Wallaby forwards coaches (McGahan and Blades that the ARU brought in after they sacked the other lot post...

I think you make an excellent point via that question. If one looks at the brief Dave Alred coaching vid posted by IS above, it just begins to give a flavour of the complex physical and psychological disciplines - all applied with a kind of boring, obsessive repetition - that are required to...

Good question. I can recall no pre-game designation of a Wallaby kicker, but can recall that a point was made that Deans would not reveal pre-game whom that kicker was to be. Then after Lilo went down, it was fed to the Fox comms that in fact Lilo was to be the designated kicker - which btw...

Btw, I cannot help but note this reference from an article by Bret Harris in today's The Australian (my emphasis): "The normally reliable O'Connor took over the goalkicking, but he was successful with only two of five attempts. It is understood a hamstring twinge had prevented him practising...

The ABs had for many recent years retained the services of a full-time kicking and catching skills coach in one Mick Byrne..........the Aussie ex-AFL player. He worked very closely with DC and all the ABs on these disciplines.

Can you indulge me in a (relevant) family story? A few weeks back in the QLD rugby club pre-season, I was fortunate enough to get my 15 year old rugby playing son into a Dave Alred-conducted specialist kicking clinic right here in Brisbane. About 15 other boys of varying ages also joined. My...

For those of us very concerned over years of Wallaby teams having erratic - and potentially Test match losing - kicking performances, both place and from hand, I thought some input today from Sir Ciive might enrich the debate...

I have already posted on what a major talent IMO Greene is and could be for the Reds. When I saw him perform exceptionally and consistently so for BGS in last year's QLD GPS I was astounded at his skill and composure under pressure. He seemed also to have a maturity about his decision-making way...

Richo: I fear you're right. Deans has a proven stubborn streak around 'favoured' players even when the evidence is strong that the selection concerned has been a serious misjudgement (as JO'C at 10 is - so far - looking). An immediate change after one Test is a de facto admission of the coach's...

Re budget and so on for specialist coaches, did you see the obvious dividends of Sharpie as a specialist line out coach? My fucking word we did. I should credit Deans with that decision. But it's the randomness and the erratic breaking out patterns of his moments of wisdom that have always...

Totally correct. We have known for years that kicking was likely to play a massive part in any contest against the very best teams, especially the ABs and BIL. This truth is so obvious that no great analysis is required to sustain it. As I have posted for years here, Deans' continuous refusal...

If JH receives enforced side line time, surely Mowen must be captain. With the huge pressure on the Wallabies in Test 2, I agree with other posters here that Genia would be best left without the added responsibility and distraction from his principal work. Btw, the admirable growth and...

IMO, the lack of a warm-up game over the 3 week pre-Test period - especially given the rookies chosen and the limited S15 time of many of Deans' core selections - was a major misjudgment (as I posted prior, this is not an afterthought comment). Courage etc is a fabulous attribute that we're...

Surely the positive point to be derived from Braveheart's anecdotal analysis is that Deans is on a gradual learning curve wrt to the optimal rate of bench use over the 5+ years he's been Wallaby coach. 2012 showed progress in this regard.

One thing we can confidently state: on present showings, Sexton is likely to be hugely better than was the then hapless Priestland in Australia last year.