Scarfie:
You posts above are excellent, and represent the discussion that urgently needs to be had re the obvious deficiencies in the contemporary Wallaby back line performance.
To echo Jets' and your points: Link has absolutely made it plain on many occasions that I've heard him in small groups that QC (Quade Cooper) 'thinks a lot about the game' and is highly active in planning and advising on the Reds' backs in particular and attack in general. But remember: Link appointed a formal, full-time, dedicated backs/attack coach in Jim McKay whom Dwyer and others has praised for what they have seen at the Reds. Excellence in back line delivery obviously must, as you say, involve meticulous consultation with the relevant players as the execution requires rehearsal, precision and rapid-fire implementation that means that any player involved must not only know and understand their role(s), but equally must be comfortable in being able to execute it. Fine rugby backs work by definition requires a recipe for collaborative planning, decision-making and execution - how else could it be given the nature of the task?
Now for perhaps the most crucial observation of all: Since Day 1 of the Deans era, there have never, not once, been a formally and clearly appointed backs/attack coach. Which other elite rugby team follows this pattern, where clearly in the Wallabies case the head coach assumes this role himself, directly. And does this highly odd construction of elite coaching roles not resonate with McCaw's precise concerns over Deans as AB's coach post 2007 and where further Deans did not consider it material or important that he took to his crucial NZRU final 2007 interview a statement as to whom his key assiatant coaches would be?
It all fits together like a perfect jigsaw. It's all there in the video, we're seen the pattern of quality Wallaby back line play gradually decay for 4 years. Just compare the Wallaby backs play of their home win vs the ABs early in the 2008 season with what we see in 2012 vs Wales and the ABs.
Now, whom did Henry recommend as his backs coach for 2008 and beyond? Wayne Smith. To see what a fine elite-level backs coach can do _in quick time_ just go compare: Chiefs' 2011 backs play and general quality with the Chiefs' 2012 variety. That upgrade - and to very high standards of backs play - was manifestly central to the Chiefs' dramatic improvement in winning the S15 this year. Who's the Chiefs' 2012 backs coach: Wayne Smith. Meanwhile, for nearly 5 years, the ARU and Deans have considered it perfectly acceptable that no person of proven credentials in the elite game be appointed clearly and consistently to this role.
