Australian Rugby / RA

[Dan54]

He thinks he's bulletproof.

Seems he is.

 

[Goosestep]

Why do you say that out of interest? If I'm honest this was the one thing Eddie did I really liked. Obviously it didn't work out because of injuries and we only saw it for two games. But there was no way of knowing that at the time. And the burning through of captains in the Rugby championship was very dumb.

But I thought Skelton 1) was by far and away our best player who was leading through his actions. I also found him very impressive when I did hear him speak 2) Signalled a clean break from the past, which I did think was necessary. Putting thoughts around Hooper and whether he should have gone aside, I was never particularly struck by him as a captain. Pretty factually he was very unsuccessful and the Wallabies was a losing environment for a lot of his time as skipper.

Would not mind if he remains captain moving forward. I certainly hope he keeps getting picked.

He didn’t want it

 

[rodha]

My plan for Aus Rugby

Firstly as we start off I would open selection to any eligible Australian. While I know this isn’t popular long term structural change will take time. By allowing us to pick our best side with no restrictions will help us remain competitive while we wait for longer term solutions to bare fruit.

Secondly I would use all the money they are planning to borrow to set up a proper pathway.

It’s my opinion that neither the Shute Shield or Hospitals cup are fit for purpose.

The key issues they suburban comps and don’t provide pathways for kids outside of the city and don’t engage with the wider community as a result. Secondly they are under funded. Each TAC Cup program has a full time talent coordinator then part time coaches.

Look at the foot print of the hospitals cup 8 Brisbane clubs and one from the Gold Coast. Compare that to the Queensland cup that has teams in Cairns, Townsville, McKay, Rockhampton, the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast. Again the Shute Shield has 12 clubs, 11 in Sydney.

30 years ago the AFL made the decision to shut the 19s comp for the VFL clubs. As they could see the game was becoming more professional and they had to provide better pathways for potential athletes. When you look at some of the names that have come out of the country sides (not including Geelong as the Falcons just replaced the Cats 19s) you have guys like Scott Pendlebury, Dustin Martin, Jeremy Cameron, Steele Sidebottom, Clayton Oliver, Joel Selwood, Josh Dunkley, Harry and Ben McKay, Sam Docherty, Dyson Heppel, Dale Thomas, Jarryd Roughead, Chris Tarrant, Nick Dal Santo, Ollie Wines, Adams Goodes, Jarrod Berry, Hugh McCluggage, Jake Stringer, Jack Ziebell, Tom Rockliff, Ben McEvoy, Ben Reid, Brett Deledio, David Mundy, Steve Johnson, Jarrod Waite and Josh Fraser. As well as supplying the 2022 number one pick Arron Camden and the 2023 number one pick Harley Reid.

The point being while the depth of talent in regional Queensland and NSW wouldn’t be at the same level as the depth of Aussie rules in regional Victoria we are still missing out on so many potential athletes by not having a framework that provides them a proper pathway for these kids.

The role of the talent manager is to help develop the game, they work with the local coaches facilitating coaching development sessions. They also get feedback from the coaches on who they would recommend for the rep sides so when the talent scouts go to watch the games they know who to look out for. They also liaise with the state programs and professional clubs about who they believe can make it to the next level.

So say you restructured the state comps to have 6 regional teams in Queensland and 8 metropolitan. Say 5 regional teams in NSW, 5 in Sydney and 4 in west Sydney. You can then build off that, having the best players play Queensland County, Brisbane, NSW Country, Sydney City, West Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth. Have your age groups u/16s u/18s u/20s with the option of when the talent develops to bring back the senior comp.

Not only will investment in development staff at the metro clubs better prepare and up-skill young players and coaches. It will also help us engage the broader rugby community.

The NRC never really worked because it was arbitrary in how players were split between city and county teams without giving representation to the country teams.

I think you'll find the rot started when two of Australia's best and most innovative rugby minds were hounded out of the country because of the fact they were disciplinaries. Robbie fostered a culture of player power and entitlement within an entire generation of young players and that invariably contributed to McKenzie's demise. Hoops, Beale, Phipps, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), etc.. were initially Robbie's projects and he game them a free license in the Wallabies as younger players coming through and there were no defined consequences - nor senior players such as Giteau or Smith to pull them in line as Robbie had already made sure to dispense of them.

 

[stillmissit]

I think you'll find the rot started when two of Australia's best and most innovative rugby minds were hounded out of the country because of the fact they were disciplinaries. Robbie fostered a culture of player power and entitlement within an entire generation of young players and that invariably contributed to McKenzie's demise. Hoops, Beale, Phipps, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) (Adam Ashley-Cooper), etc.. were initially Robbie's projects and he game them a free license in the Wallabies as younger players coming through and there were no defined consequences - nor senior players such as Giteau or Smith to pull them in line as Robbie had already made sure to dispense of them.

you need to read a bit about our history. McQueen introduced player power as a means to get buy in from all players. Like many great ideas at the time the final outcome was pretty poor. Players in Deans time already had the entitlement gene and the 3 amigo's were a perfect example of that.
Deans attempted to get Beale to grow up and spent a lot of time with him but he was a spoilt kid and appears to have remained so.
McKenzie's troubles were a result of a well meaning solution to a problem by McQueen. I think we had a wonderful time with McQueen and Jones managed to get to the final 2003 with a good number of McQueen's team BUT they were never as good as when McQueen was coach.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

Not sure if spoilt is the right term for KB (Kurtley Beale). Knowing about his past and also what he can be like I lean towards saying easily influenced by the closest around him. At some pivotal moments of his career and age he wasn't where he needed to be.

 

[stillmissit]

Not sure if spoilt is the right term for KB (Kurtley Beale) (Kurtley Beale). Knowing about his past and also what he can be like I lean towards saying easily influenced by the closest around him. At some pivotal moments of his career and age he wasn't where he needed to be.

True enough, my issue with him was that he was feted by the media and picked in several positions to use his talent but seems to have never grown up. If he was easily influenced, then he seemed to have never learned how to deal with it. His episode with McKenzie might have got another player in a different time to have 'never to be selected again' written in his file.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are....

I don't think he has or will learn to deal with it tbh. It could be his nature unfortunately. What saved him was the talent he clearly has and the lack of depth in the Wallabies.

I think you should just deal with a temporary deficiency by means of cutting him if it is better for the whole in the long run. No dickhead policy has worked for a lot of organisations.

 

[Wallaby Man]

Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are....

I don't think he has or will learn to deal with it tbh. It could be his nature unfortunately. What saved him was the talent he clearly has and the lack of depth in the Wallabies.

I think you should just deal with a temporary deficiency by means of cutting him if it is better for the whole in the long run. No dickhead policy has worked for a lot of organisations.

I personally think the no dickheads policy is a fallacy in sporting organizations. I genuinely believe that you can be a dickhead off the field but the most incredible teammate and contributor to the playing environment.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

I personally think the no dickheads policy is a fallacy in sporting organizations. I genuinely believe that you can be a dickhead off the field but the most incredible teammate and contributor to the playing environment.

Probably right. maybe it's a case of not have the dickheads in any sort of control? Or the leaders are strong enough to drown them out.

 

[Wilson]

I personally think the no dickheads policy is a fallacy in sporting organizations. I genuinely believe that you can be a dickhead off the field but the most incredible teammate and contributor to the playing environment.

Yeah, a lot of successful teams will crow about their "no dickheads" policy (or whatever they want call it) and it looks somewhat true at the time, but a few years out there's always plenty that comes out to contradict that.

I think the much more likely scenario is that success makes people a lot more tolerant of dick headed behaviour and it's generally easier to get along with everyone when everything is going well.

 

[Highlander35]

I personally think the no dickheads policy is a fallacy in sporting organizations. I genuinely believe that you can be a dickhead off the field but the most incredible teammate and contributor to the playing environment.

If the talent pool is broad enough (In Rugby, I think this would only cover international level and England, NZ, France, Ireland and RSA) I think it's not unreasonable.

But below that my god, you've gotta make some compromises. Bip Meehan seems like an utter knob, but it was clear to anyone and everyone who watched Rebels under TT that the team ran better with him playing rather than the establishments pet Stirzaker (nothing against him individually, lovely bloke, but had too much on his plate too early to ever approach his potential, which I think was probably still a lower than many around the Rebs thought).

From an AFL/VFL/St Kilda POV, being burned by Lovett plus other shit from the established senior group had us leaning way too hard into the no dickheads shit in the first half of 2010s: Billings over Bont and McCartin over Petracca have had long term negative consequences that we're barely beginning to recover from.

 

[stillmissit]

Yeah, a lot of successful teams will crow about their "no dickheads" policy (or whatever they want call it) and it looks somewhat true at the time, but a few years out there's always plenty that comes out to contradict that.

I think the much more likely scenario is that success makes people a lot more tolerant of dick headed behaviour and it's generally easier to get along with everyone when everything is going well.

I suspect the history of the Crusaders points to an error in your opinion.

 

[Wilson]

I suspect the history of the Crusaders points to an error in your opinion.

The crusaders have had plenty of dickheads but fewer breaks in success to feel the pain of them. Even if you did want to argue they'd successfully implemented a no dickhead policy there's no justification it's anything other than correlation, particularly if it's not repeated elsewhere.

 

[Highlander35]

I suspect the history of the Crusaders points to an error in your opinion.

That's been compromised for 5+ seasons

 

[Slim 293]

Sevu Reece.

 

[Ignoto]

Probably right. maybe it's a case of not have the dickheads in any sort of control? Or the leaders are strong enough to drown them out.

It's interesting to note that some of the biggest omissions in this years RWC (Cooper and Hooper) early on in their careers were on the dickhead spectrum.

Cooper came to the Reds with a stench of being a laptop thief and there was the infamous 'Stradbroke Island pub' incident where he was a bit of a pest whilst on one leg.

Hooper just after being made Wallabies captain got on the piss at Bryon and was swinging from signs while a mate of his jumped on cars. Don't forget he was also part of the Di Paterson shitshow.

Both seemed to mature out later on and became well respected members of the squad and in the public.

On the other end, you've got JOC (James O'Connor) who took a bit longer to get there and I'll leave Beale out of this conversation as I've spoken to death about his off-field transgressions.

 

[Crashy]

Patston...
The hardest name to pronounce after 10 beers in Australian rugby..

 

[eastman]

Hooper just after being made Wallabies captain got on the piss at Bryon and was swinging from signs while a mate of his jumped on cars. Don't forget he was also part of the Di Paterson shitshow.

It‘s a real stretch to put Hooper on the dickhead spectrum for swinging on a stop sign compared to the average behaviour of a footballer on a night out.

 

[Derpus]

It's interesting to note that some of the biggest omissions in this years RWC (Cooper and Hooper) early on in their careers were on the dickhead spectrum.

Cooper came to the Reds with a stench of being a laptop thief and there was the infamous 'Stradbroke Island pub' incident where he was a bit of a pest whilst on one leg.

Hooper just after being made Wallabies captain got on the piss at Bryon and was swinging from signs while a mate of his jumped on cars. Don't forget he was also part of the Di Paterson shitshow.

Both seemed to mature out later on and became well respected members of the squad and in the public.

On the other end, you've got JOC (James O'Connor) (James O'Connor) who took a bit longer to get there and I'll leave Beale out of this conversation as I've spoken to death about his off-field transgressions.

Supremely talented athletes are cockheads in late adolescence but then mature as they age... seems pretty standard.

 

[Tomthumb]

It‘s a real stretch to put Hooper on the dickhead spectrum for swinging on a stop sign compared to the average behaviour of a footballer on a night out.

Yeah that's nothing, but the Patston issue wasn't a good look for him at all