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Australian Rugby / RA

Killer

Cyril Towers (30)
No, he's there to use his knowledge of rugby and the people involved to select the panel and get them to agree to participate. He's also there to help facilitate buy-in from the coaches around the country.

If it was entirely obvious who the put on the panel and that the ARU's reputation was such that every coach around the country was entirely keen to buy into the process on the bidding of the ARU then they probably wouldn't need him.

Kafer's reputation and knowledge is pretty important here.

I'm sure a lot of coaches and others would think he is a dickhead as I do. Ben Whittaker seemed to have it under control what is his value add above BW?
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
What makes you think Kafer's reputation amongst ex-players and current and former coaches and administrators in the game is bad?
 

Killer

Cyril Towers (30)
What makes you think Kafer's reputation amongst ex-players and current and former coaches and administrators in the game is bad?

That is a personal opinion, others may or may not have it. What does he value add above BW. For mine it undermines BW. If Kafer is not there as an expert to coach the coaches he provides very little imo. What will attract the coaches is who they do decide to coach the coaches. I'm sure BW could organise that with input from the coaches themselves.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
That is a personal opinion, others may or may not have it.


Two posts above you said you were sure that a lot of coaches also thought he was a dickhead.

Maybe Whittaker already has a full time load in his job and thought they needed additional resources to help achieve what they wanted?

Maybe the ARU thought they needed resources from outside the ARU to provide an external perspective different to their own?
 

Killer

Cyril Towers (30)
Kafe would never have an external perspective different from the ARU, imo he is an empty vessel that just takes the view of whom ever is his current boss.
Ref the DH comment that is my opinion based on what I see, it would not surprise me if others have it.
 

dru

David Wilson (68)
It just smacks of, Let's have a meeting, to determine an agenda, to have a meeting, for something that if you wanted done you'd just get with it.
EDIT: Unlike many rugby appointees, Kafer has carefully put himself in the public eye and it's not unreasonable that we the public have an opinion on the bloke and what he brings to the party. IMVHO,and personal opinion, bugger all on offer.
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
I find it interesting that people can judge Kafer's capability in an admin role based on his ability as a sideline analyst/pundit.

The two have nothing to do with each other.

The bloke may or may not be a dickhead, but frankly I don't care at all. His job is to develop coaching pathways and ensure there is more cohesion in our coaching ranks. If he can succeed at that then he can be as big a dickhead as he wants.

And I hardly think he would have been appointed if he didn't have the respect of the broader rugby coaching community, especially at the top level.

I'd really prefer if they focussed more on grassroots coaching, and I hope that becomes a key facet of Kafer's role. Because I think he'd be great at helping new coaches get excited about the game.
.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Of course you can have an opinion on Kafer.

How many of the rugby people in the public eye, particularly commentators do you have a positive opinion of?

Do you think that opinion is shared by their colleagues, former teammates and coaches?

Do you have any knowledge of the company he is part of that is part of the consulting arrangement with the ARU?

It seems like most of the criticism is based on not really knowing what he has been hired to do as well as not knowing the guy personally nor what he does outside of commentary.

Yet every single person would be of the view that Australian rugby's lack of cooperation and collaboration is a problem as well as significant problems with the coaching pathways in the country and the quality of coaches.

Yet when something is attempted to be done about it, they all rubbish it.
 

Killer

Cyril Towers (30)
yes that is stupid of me, doing it in house or the ARU appointing someone "independent" is equally stupid.
This organisation needs a genuine 3rd party to oversee anything they do. BTW that's not one owned by John Eales.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
If we want to improve coaching pathways, surely we would actually look to recruit from where there is a pattern of successful coaching attributes. Sounds like another ARU inside stitch up job. Kafer isn't that impressive. He runs his mouth like he is some great analyst and that analysis is never really tested as a coaches analysis would be. When he's not doing that, he just bitches about referees. Rod Kafer = pseudo coach.
 

Rugbynutter39

Michael Lynagh (62)
Just thinking how rugby had a head start professionally on soccer in this country and was ahead of them in early years....and now A-League established its own national domestic competition but we have retracted to 4 professional teams with concerns we can't support a national domestic professional competition at this point. Gees that just makes me angry with the ARU for so screwing up our game to be at this point.

We are at a crossroads with potential money and resources from outsider, Twiggy, to be invested in our game to actually make us move forward. Gees I hope the ARU don't screw this opportunity up so we actually have a better decade ahead then just had as if continue on the current trajectory rugby will be competing with ping pong as far as sports go.
 

Killer

Cyril Towers (30)
Just thinking how rugby had a head start professionally on soccer in this country and was ahead of them in early years..and now A-League established its own national domestic competition but we have retracted to 4 professional teams with concerns we can't support a national domestic professional competition at this point. Gees that just makes me angry with the ARU for so screwing up our game to be at this point.

We are at a crossroads with potential money and resources from outsider, Twiggy, to be invested in our game to actually make us move forward. Gees I hope the ARU don't screw this opportunity up so we actually have a better decade ahead then just had as if continue on the current trajectory rugby will be competing with ping pong as far as sports go.

Listening to John Welborn at the enquiry, audio only, they still seem upset with the ARU about what happened, as you would expect. But to make matters worse there did not seem to be any comments made, from my recollection, that things were on a better footing now? the hansard should be out soon to confirm. Importantly JW is an is a key cog in the Twiggy Comp planning group so I think he would be speaking for them too.
 

swingpass

Peter Sullivan (51)
for those with short memories, Kafer was one of the principal off field architects of both the Brumbies and Wallabies success in the 90's. He was a key strategist with the RWC winning team in 99. its possible that his thinking hasn't evolved with the game, but my observations from watching him on TV is that he is still an astute observer of the game. by his own admission his only stint at actual coaching wasn't that successful, so we will see what eventuates, at least its a start and recognition that the coaches need some coaching and uniformity of approach Australia wide.
 

dru

David Wilson (68)
@Baba, BH and Swing.

I just don’t agree. BUT I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. All the best to Kafe.

(Going to hold on to the view that Aus rugby is basically fucked by cronyism, but I guess that doesn’t mean good somewhere comes from it.)
 
T

TOCC

Guest
yes it is bad, its a sad reflection of the state of Australian rugby that young players would rather head off to another country and province to play rugby for the same wage against their own former teammates
 
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