Biffo
Ken Catchpole (46)
There have been quite a few references on the board to how the Wallabies play the game, or style or how we think about it. Perhaps we should bring them together and have a little reflection?
I was horribly depressed on Saturday night, but less so yesterday when I spent some time thinking about it. I spent no time analyzing the game - how do you analyze something that was hopeless in every single respect?
Let's start with our having a young set of players who may be on their way to being a very good team. Young and developing teams have many ups and downs, with wild swings from joy to despair for their supporters. The key to progress for developing teams is that each high should be higher and each low less low, than the previous. If that's happening, you are on the way. What's that you say? Our lows are getting lower? I don't think so; Saturday was nowhere near as bad as Johannesburg last year.
Most seem to agree that we have been rubbish since since Macqueen (and some very good players) retired, which is late 2001 to 2009. To me, this raises two questions: (1) what are the common factors in the nine years of rubbishness? (2) what are the differences in factors in those years?
In personnel, I can think of only Smith, Mortlock, Baxter and Sharpe as common among the players.
The retention system - long term contracts with flat payments with no incentives or disincentives - remains the same.
The talent identification and development system remains the same.
The administrative system has remained the same.
Jones, Connolly and Deans are vastly different coaches but the outcomes are the same.
I have one thought. Australian rugby has been characterized throughout its history by the capacity to improvize and innovate- which are the factors which has forged and defined the Australian national character over 200+ years. If you look at the times when we were good at rugby, you will see that we were innovating. Alan Jones, Bob Dwyer and Greg Smith were all great innovators. Eddie Jones brought in one improvization - playing without a forward pack. Noone could expect Connolly to innovate. Deans is an innovator, as apparently is Richard Graham. I can see that Deans is trying to play the game diferently, but still within the Australian philosophy of running attacking rugby supported by ruthless defence. That doesn't seem to be happening on the field enough of the time. Why not?
It may be that we simply don't have the cattle.
I confess. I did spend one minute thinking about Saturday. We lost yesterday for the same reason the Evil has beaten us so many times over the years - they are very skilled technically, know what to do and when to do it and do it very well ... and they never give up.
I was horribly depressed on Saturday night, but less so yesterday when I spent some time thinking about it. I spent no time analyzing the game - how do you analyze something that was hopeless in every single respect?
Let's start with our having a young set of players who may be on their way to being a very good team. Young and developing teams have many ups and downs, with wild swings from joy to despair for their supporters. The key to progress for developing teams is that each high should be higher and each low less low, than the previous. If that's happening, you are on the way. What's that you say? Our lows are getting lower? I don't think so; Saturday was nowhere near as bad as Johannesburg last year.
Most seem to agree that we have been rubbish since since Macqueen (and some very good players) retired, which is late 2001 to 2009. To me, this raises two questions: (1) what are the common factors in the nine years of rubbishness? (2) what are the differences in factors in those years?
In personnel, I can think of only Smith, Mortlock, Baxter and Sharpe as common among the players.
The retention system - long term contracts with flat payments with no incentives or disincentives - remains the same.
The talent identification and development system remains the same.
The administrative system has remained the same.
Jones, Connolly and Deans are vastly different coaches but the outcomes are the same.
I have one thought. Australian rugby has been characterized throughout its history by the capacity to improvize and innovate- which are the factors which has forged and defined the Australian national character over 200+ years. If you look at the times when we were good at rugby, you will see that we were innovating. Alan Jones, Bob Dwyer and Greg Smith were all great innovators. Eddie Jones brought in one improvization - playing without a forward pack. Noone could expect Connolly to innovate. Deans is an innovator, as apparently is Richard Graham. I can see that Deans is trying to play the game diferently, but still within the Australian philosophy of running attacking rugby supported by ruthless defence. That doesn't seem to be happening on the field enough of the time. Why not?
It may be that we simply don't have the cattle.
I confess. I did spend one minute thinking about Saturday. We lost yesterday for the same reason the Evil has beaten us so many times over the years - they are very skilled technically, know what to do and when to do it and do it very well ... and they never give up.
