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Bledisloe #2 - AUS v NZL, Eden Park, Auckland, August 15th

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chasmac

Alex Ross (28)
I haven't commented on the game yet so here is my impression;
1) Our forwards went missing; Forcefan's stats tell a very damning story.
2) The speed of the game was too quick for Sio, Kepu, Skelton and Palu although Kepu seemed to keep his efforts coming.
3) Skelton is not a starter.
4) Douglas looked MASSIVE when he came on but like Skelton, wasn't able to really smash anyone.
5) Pocock ended up being well contained but wasn't far off single handedly swinging the momentum at times.
6) there was alot of one out running and slow recycle from these hitups.
7) the game was lost in the forwards, both at the selection table and on the paddock.
8) Almost mirror result from the previous week where we outplayed, out enthused and out coached them on our home ground.
9) Kieran Reid was my MOM but you could hand it to any of Franks, Whitelock, Richie, Carter, Nonu or Milner-Skudder.
 

BDA

Jim Lenehan (48)
I think to be fair to Cheika he has had not enough time to try out combinations and strategies. He took some chances two weeks ago and they paid off, he tried some new stuff last week and they failed. At least he had learnt a lot about what will and wont work against a side like the All Blacks.
 
T

Train Without a Station

Guest
Could not agree more BDA. He's essentially done exactly what I criticized him for not doing on the EOYT.
 

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
The chinks in Chek are starting to show, there is no hiding place once a national HC gets to around 8-10 Tests of tenure.

- the 'rotational and experimental' changes to the Sydney squad were, as some of us predicted prior, high risk and potentially reckless, and at EP, they were revealed as such. Little if anything was gained from them, and much was lost via them. The notion that the Aus rugby community as a whole will value a great RWC performance more than wining a BC is flawed in my view (and Deans putting all his declared eggs into 'developing for RWC 2011' vs a hard focus on 'winning now' ended in tears at that RWC).


<snip>


Yet there was a considerable number of posters applauding the continued tinkering with the side prior to the crucial BP game at EP.

Some are even saying we need more tinkering. No right answer for some people.

 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
Yep, as much I had misgivings about it, we're out of time to find out about combinations against top level opponents. No more experimentation, just pick the best 23 each game and rip in.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Interesting piece re the awarding of the gong for 'Who Stuffed up Most in Bled #2, QC (Quade Cooper) or To'omua?'

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ustly-cast-as-wallabies-bledisloe-cup-villain


Strange article.

Certainly some of it is accurate and To'omua made a couple of shocking kicks but trying to paint Cooper's high tackle yellow card into some sort of noble deed is a bit ridiculous.

The yellow card cost the Wallabies massively and was given away in a situation where the All Blacks were going to score anyway.

Without doubt the Wallabies couldn't have handled the period with 14 men much worse. For that, Cooper certainly isn't responsible.
 

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
Yet there was a considerable number of posters applauding the continued tinkering with the side prior to the crucial BP game at EP.

Some are even saying we need more tinkering. No right answer for some people.

Yes. But please, let us go on results and actual outcomes.

MC had what, 7 Tests pre Bled #2 to 'assess combinations'. But somehow that is not enough to really know what works best? So we know the ABs will hit back massively at the breakdown at EP, but let's give the long-ineffective-vs-ABs Palu a good run and not start Poey. Let's just see what that turns up.

It seems that some observers and posters here think it's fine to 'experiment' with the BC squads, just so long as this all appears to presage great things for the RWC, irrespective of the substantive risks of these particular experiments and the setting-back damage to the team that might be caused by those risks. Let alone the implied assumption that winning a BC is somehow thus of a lower priority than the best path to the RWC, an assumption I consider highly debatable.

Or the damage to long-abused and bruised Wallaby fans who are slowly deserting the code after, especially, The Six Lost Years of Deans.

For me, and I think for some other fans too, further improvement at EP with that same wonderful mode of play quality as was evident in Sydney, would have been terrific and a signal of genuinely sustained progress. Such would have buoyed fan confidence whilst doing the same for the team. A win was not crucial or assured, but a great Wallaby fight with an honourable scoreline was required.

Instead we are left with a sense of perhaps another false dawn being upon us and yet another humiliation vs the ABs in NZ of a kind we seem like lambkins incapable of improving upon.

Certainly ups the stakes for a stellar performance at the RWC to compensate.
 

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
Redshappy and I have long discussed the subject of complete rugby management and coaching systems and it generally comes back to ensuring that the players have complete skill set coverage.

Last year when Link resigned and Chieka was appointed I was saddened and happy at the same time like many here, but I did make the comment that the situation was very reminiscent of John Connolly being appointed less than 12 months out from the 2007 RWC. He wasn't given enough time (and didn't appoint or wasn't given the resources) to correct the massive failings predominantly in the pack that carried over from the Macqueen and Jones selection and game plan policies.

Similarly I feared last year that the drastic change in tack with Chieka would leave him with insufficient time and games to bed in the new plan and achieve the required intensity/fitness. I had hoped that he would this year appoint a complete coaching group, including coverage for the set pieces, ball skills and kicking from hand and tee. It hasn't happened and I am left hoping that Wales apparent weakness where Australia is concerned continues and that the Fijians target the Welsh game heavily because I still fear there is a very strong possibility that the Wallabies will not progress out of the pool stages, simply because there remain glaring skill deficiencies that become critical when under the sort of pressure that the ABs were able to bring to bare on Saturday.
 
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The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
Whilst the situations are similar, I don't think they are the same. Cheika clearly has an idea of what he wants to do and who he wants to do it with. Knuckles always felt like a caretaker coach to me, whereas Cheika isn't. Knuckles also had a group of players that probably weren't going to get a lot better, whereas Cheika I think can make this group better than that which he inherited. His track record suggests that it's possible. I also thought that Link could achieve it too, but we don't need to discuss how that ended.

Our current forward pack is IMHO clearly better than the one we took into RWC2007, especially in the set piece. I still think we've got a massive job getting out of our group, but that's mostly because we've got an England on the rise, a competitive Wales and a Fiji who I think everyone has underestimated.

In any case it's too late for discussion of systems etc, the reality is that the tournament is in six weeks and the coach has to roll with what he has.
 

waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
Strange article.

Certainly some of it is accurate and To'omua made a couple of shocking kicks but trying to paint Cooper's high tackle yellow card into some sort of noble deed is a bit ridiculous.

The yellow card cost the Wallabies massively and was given away in a situation where the All Blacks were going to score anyway.

Without doubt the Wallabies couldn't have handled the period with 14 men much worse. For that, Cooper certainly isn't responsible.

Until he got binned (& I withdraw my "shoulda been a Red" comment, looked worse in real time than replay so just a Yellow was correct call) I thought Cooper was just about the only guy out there who looked capable of winning it for you & was more than a little worried what might happen if some of his high-risk plays came off (and I think it goes without saying that had Cooper kicked as poorly as To'omua the GAGR server would've melted).

Similarly, had Cooper not at least attempted the Smith tackle he'd have been pilloried for being a weak defender; instead he gets pilloried for being an inaccurate defender. Bloke can't win either way.

I don't subscribe to the theory that QC (Quade Cooper) is crap v NZ (Dunners 2013, anyone?) but his high-risk/ potentially-high return game is probably only gonna work say 1/3 against top-shelf opposition so if you're gonna start him you'd best have a safer Plan B on the bench.
 

waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
^^^^^^ I've never seen that work with any high-risk player, in rugby, cricket or anything else, rather they seem to try even harder to make it work with sometimes disasterous consequences. Best to pull them & just say something like "today's not your day so I pulled you but next week I want you back out there doing the same stuff 'cos that could be your day". So-called confidence players have to be managed carefully 'cos if they lose the confidence the magic generally goes, too.
 

KOB1987

John Eales (66)
Interesting piece re the awarding of the gong for 'Who Stuffed up Most in Bled #2, QC (Quade Cooper) or To'omua?'

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ustly-cast-as-wallabies-bledisloe-cup-villain

Notwithstanding BH's comments, which I agree with, reading that article brought something out of my memory bank that I had forgotten about. Capetown last year when MT kept kicking the ball back straight down the throats of the Springbok back 3, who would then run it back at us and test our defences for umpteen phases each time. IIRC our defence held out for about 70 minutes and then capitulated EP style for the last 10 minutes. People in one corner were saying it was the impact of the Boks bench that was the difference, those in the other corner were saying (IMO correctly)'no it wasn't, it was To'omua's kicking'..

He has a place in the 23 but it's not as our starting 10..
 

Brumbieman

Dick Tooth (41)
The chinks in Chek are starting to show, there is no hiding place once a national HC gets to around 8-10 Tests of tenure.

- the 'rotational and experimental' changes to the Sydney squad were, as some of us predicted prior, high risk and potentially reckless, and at EP, they were revealed as such. Little if anything was gained from them, and much was lost via them. The notion that the Aus rugby community as a whole will value a great RWC performance more than wining a BC is flawed in my view (and Deans putting all his declared eggs into 'developing for RWC 2011' vs a hard focus on 'winning now' ended in tears at that RWC).

Wonderful fan and media enthusiasm - rightly consolidated with excitement and pleasure from the Sydney victory - was squandered in Auckland where we looked worse than 2014's Test there, if such was possible.

A sensible and positive goal from Sydney was further improvement in Auckland, and a narrow loss. Instead, we went backwards, H2 of the game was a classic modern Wallaby debacle of brain fades, lowered intensity, poor forwards work, idiotic kicking, fallen skills. Come yesterday back in Aus, newly positive, wide media coverage of the 2015 Wallabies turned sceptical and sour all over again. Big shame.

(Do I vaguely recall that the ABs tried some kind of 'experimental/rotational' squad design policy pre RWC 2007 and G Henry wrote later that it was one of his biggest-ever mistakes and 'never again'?)

- I said ages ago that Cheika showed subtle, and potentially dangerous, signs of hubris and managerial over-reach in insisting to the ARU that he coach both the Tahs and Wallabies in 2015. And that this would end with neither being optimised and neither getting the desired outcomes in 2015.

I stand by that assessment. Chek understandably entered 2015 highly distracted by those two crucial parallel roles. The 2015 Tahs did not evolve and innovate enough vs 2014, and they paid the price very clearly as they had no answer when the Clan so brutally unlocked their overly-rigid code in the S15 SF.

- I posted weeks or months ago that we'd rue the day that we did not build anything like a comprehensive enough national Wallaby coaching team to (a) deal properly with well-established serious Wallaby weaknesses of long vintage and (b) compete with the full-scale coaching professionalism of particularly the ABs, and just as likely the likes of England.

I then highlighted the lack of a dedicated Wallaby forwards coach, the lack of an experienced line out coach (Ledesma is not that), and the lack of a full-time kicking and catching coach, and, ideally, the lack of a sports psychologist or mental skills coach (a la the ABs exceptional G Enoka).

It's very clear after TRC and the BC that each of the above crucial facets of elite national rugby are far from being attended to adequately and optimised by the Wallaby coaching group.

Our forwards play is at best erratic and inconsistent, the moment the ABs put the real heat on at the breakdown at EP we crumbled, partly as we had no Poey to start the match, as we did similarly vs the Boks in Brisbane where the Boks far superior turnover rate nearly won them the game. We will not win BCs or RWCs with numbers 1-8 that only really turn up for 1 out of 3 games, and/or only for home games. It's in this area that a really good, wholly dedicated forwards coach - like an M Foley or a L Fisher - can make a huge difference over time. HC's trying to run backs or forwards themselves just stretches them too thin given the technical, S&C and skills work required in today's game, neither task is optimised.

Do I need to even mention the line out debacles? Saying it's all about Simmons' absence is woefully superficial. The prices paid for a chaotic or inconsistent line out in Tests - well, we all know them don't we.

Gnostic above made his typically astute observations re the kicking capabilities (or the lack thereof) of our back 3, and the criticality of kicking skills to productive and successful exit strategies. It's obvious is it not that even our better kickers back there (let alone btw our 10s) - e.g. Mitchell - are not kicking from hand consistently well enough, they need full-time technical support and guidance. Posters here that have said they only need more intensive practice by themselves are a relic of the 1970s, they don't appreciate what the M Alred's and S Lierich's of this world do as kicking coaches and why they're so valued the best kickers. And, btw, who should we see shoulder-to-shoulder with Hansen on Saturday night in the ABs' coaching box - none other than the Aussie Mick Byrne, the ABs kicking/catching/ball skills coach! - funny about that.

It's bullshit that the Wallabies don't suffer psychological anxiety playing at EP - it's so obvious that at that ground, they start to crack mentally when the ABs breathe fire and start to dominate them. It's precisely these types of exceptional pressure conditions that crack mental skills coaches work out how to compensate for and overcome, that's one of the biggest reasons sports psychologists are a booming global profession - the best-managed teams/sports businesses have come to realise they can deliver key '1%-ers' in team mind improvement, the crucial small gains in mindset that can make major differences to outcomes on game day.

My impression is that Chek has decided that his clearly excellent man-management and motivational skills coupled with a only small, incomplete group of support coaches are quite enough to get to the big time and drink from the big cups.

In the hyper-competitive global rugby world of 2015, and into a RWC against an AB side that has invested in deep, extensive coaching capability that is truly world-class (as their record shows), to me Chek's managerial attitude betrays both hubris and inexperience at this level.

Further, there is no one in the ARU even vaguely experienced or smart enough to provide him the high-level of advice he probably needs in these areas. Chek's personal talents are real, they may well take us upwards, however standing alone in their current guise, they may be proven necessary but, unsupplemented as they are by deeper coaching infrastructure, insufficient to get to the pinnacle.





To an extent, absolutely.

We are 10% behind each Kiwi player, it's madness to think that without physically improving each players ability, technically, getting enough of a boost from just more team cohesion is going to bridge the gap.

Laurie Fischer needs to be lured, aggressively lured/stolen....fuck it, even abducted, immediately. He's one of the premier forwards coaches in world rugby, he took players like Sio, Fardy, Carter, Hooper from promising club players or journeymen, into such standout Super rugby players that they have now become important Wallaby players.

This guy needs to be working with our forwards, giving them the one on one feedback of analysis about each players strengths, weakness, technical prowess and ability to scrummage and win lineouts as a team, that is absolutely vital for any player to receive if they're trying to bridge the crevasse between Super rugby and test rugby.

Getting a promotion and more responsibility at work, without the training necessary to make the step up, is usually regarded as a set up!
 
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