England v Australia, Sunday 19 November 2:00am AEDT

[Lost]

RU serious? The mind boggles. There are very few coaches in the world who can keep the standard up year after year after year.


Eddie deserved to get the chop. Then he destroyed the Queensland Reds, in one short season. Maybe he has learned from his mistakes, but never forget that he is now in charge of the wealthiest national team, he came into the job when expectations were rock bottom, and he has done pretty well.


When, and if, he beats a full strength All Blacks he will have proved his credentials. Beating a Wallabies side in your own backyard without two of our very best players, a side who played with 14 men for a considerable period, and 13 for a while, and which had two tries (fairly) disallowed which really should have been scored, is not all that wonderful an achievement.

The reds are a graveyard.

You must have been away last year. Think it was fairly comprehensive, Japan /Boks?

He doesn’t have much to prove, the point was if Cheika pulls the plug who is next?.


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[Derpus]

That was the worst game of rugby i've ever seen. If the rule book is deciding a match then maybe league is on to something.

In particular, the yellow for knocking the ball down? a yellow? seriously. Knock on and continue. Why the fuck should it be a penalty let alone a yellow. I mean, why would rugby create more problems for itself. It's already diving into irrelevance why do dumb shit like that.

 

[Gnostic]

Gnostic - I look forward to your later post, as I always do.

I get that he is a victim of his own past behaviour - and I would agree he has acted petulantly in previous media conferences.

But I think you are being harsh on his behaviour this morning. Do we really expect every well paid coach to have a stoic demeanour.

I just think we are starting to hold people to impossible standards. He is human. Last night he was frustrated.

He did very well with obvious provocation in the Post Match interview, better than Hanson did to be honest, but his constant carry on in the stand is where I draw my critique from. He is not being targeted, the same vision caught Jones out last week and he fronted up to that. Jones however is not caught out every week, and even though I was a supporter of Cheika, especially after the RWC, that has gone. It is not an impossible standard to actually stop and think before we react, we expect it of people in far worse situations every day such as the easy examples of those in combat and emergency services as two examples are expected to react with control and fore thought AND alacrity at the same time and losing one's cool is not acceptable. Note also that they are generally paid a small percentage of the national coach and it is a disgrace he cannot muster a modicum of self control. If today's match was an outlier, yes it would be unreasonable to make such statements, but a very long history running all the way back to formal warnings from SANZAAR and broken windows prove otherwise. On that point it makes Hanson's "stoic" demeanour understandable, even though he is known to be just as passionate as Cheika, given his background. Just another point, it is a very very poor leader who compromises their position with such displays, even if they get a siege mentality from their own team from it, they cannot expect reasonable results from outside the group, they lose standing. As I said he has become a parody outside the side and is one of mirth and disdain.

 

[wamberal]

The reds are a graveyard.

You must have been away last year. Think it was fairly comprehensive, Japan /Boks?

He doesn’t have much to prove, the point was if Cheika pulls the plug who is next?.


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So it is about next year, or the year after? That is quite different from talking about having the same coach for ten years, wouldn't you say?

 

[TSR]

Gnostic - I agree with most of what you say. I guess I am prepared to cut him a break on last night.

 

[Gnostic]

The reds are a graveyard.

You must have been away last year. Think it was fairly comprehensive, Japan /Boks?

He doesn’t have much to prove, the point was if Cheika pulls the plug who is next?.


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Jones deserved to get the chop post 2004. Do not re-write history with recent great results. He bet very wrongly on the direction Rugby would go after 2003, and depowered the Australian scrum with a statistical analysis that showed scrums as having low importance to the game. A generation of props and locks ignored it and it has taken 10 years to partially address the problem. Add in the play by numbers game plan he had at the time and his final year was a total disaster and the completely flawed foundations he created also fed into the 2007 RWC. The Reds time was a conflation of a disillusioned and angry Jones and a totally shite Reds set up and he needed to go from their as well. From there he totally re-invented himself and his approach and at Japan and England has built a complete support staff to assist. It is in stark contrast to what Cheika has done which was off personal passion in 2014-2015 and failure since, with the only proven coach he has on board being Byrne.

 

[Derpus]

The genesis of this loss is in the woeful defensive structures that the team is playing under. Unlike others I do not think Folau would have made any difference, Coleman certainly would have secured the scrum and breakdown better, but overall the loss is down to defence. The bullshit they sold themselves last week about their "D" is what they have been telling themselves all year with no acknowledgment of the repeated flaws.

Easy metres are continuously conceded in the medfield and the flanks, due in large part to the constant shuffling and F^%$%ing around of players moving all over the shop, simply because far too many of them are incapable of executing the core skills required of their position at test level and in some cases at any level.

The result is a huge number of line breaks and the scrambling defence, perhaps the best it has ever been is why they do not concede even more tries. But it results in placing the defenders under extreme pressure and ends up giving away a lot of penalties and 4 yellow cards in two games.

Individual matters such as the ball touching the line while Beale jogged and watched it etc, will be questioned but the issues remain the fundamental defensive issues which were shown all season. Individual players get lots of blame and I have mentioned it as well, but as Grey showed with the Tahs this year the structures he has produced since the 2015 RWC have been rubbish.

Gagger said a few weeks ago on the Podcast about the gauge of the success of this season would be redemption against the Poms. They failed in spectacular style and after watching the Scots game I loss against them is a reasonable expectation, Scotland just needs to attack intelligently and exploit the Wallabies woeful defensive structures.

This season for the Wallabies, follows the managerial incompetence (to the point of corruption as they have taken money for what they have done - which should be regarded a fraud for posing as professional managers) of the ARU and the total failure of the Australian Super sides.

I just can't get around this. We were horrible against NZ at the start of the year and they genuinely exploited our defensive weaknesses. But this match was the refs. We were absolutely reffed off the park. And yes, i know this is an Aussie whinging about the ref.

 

[KOB1987]

He did very well with obvious provocation in the Post Match interview, better than Hanson did to be honest, but his constant carry on in the stand is where I draw my critique from. He is not being targeted, the same vision caught Jones out last week and he fronted up to that. Jones however is not caught out every week, and even though I was a supporter of Cheika, especially after the RWC, that has gone. It is not an impossible standard to actually stop and think before we react, we expect it of people in far worse situations every day such as the easy examples of those in combat and emergency services as two examples are expected to react with control and fore thought AND alacrity at the same time and losing one's cool is not acceptable. Note also that they are generally paid a small percentage of the national coach and it is a disgrace he cannot muster a modicum of self control. If today's match was an outlier, yes it would be unreasonable to make such statements, but a very long history running all the way back to formal warnings from SANZAAR and broken windows prove otherwise. On that point it makes Hanson's "stoic" demeanour understandable, even though he is known to be just as passionate as Cheika, given his background. Just another point, it is a very very poor leader who compromises their position with such displays, even if they get a siege mentality from their own team from it, they cannot expect reasonable results from outside the group, they lose standing. As I said he has become a parody outside the side and is one of mirth and disdain.

I note you are a Randwick lad so your views should be taken seriously and objectively. However they are merely your views, the views of Owen Finegan when I was talking to him last night were that he has done a tremendous job with getting the Wallabies to where they are with limited depth, no money (comparatively) and a hopeless administrative body. My views are more aligned with his than yours.

 

[Gnostic]

I just can't get around this. We were horrible against NZ at the start of the year and they genuinely exploited our defensive weaknesses. But this match was the refs. We were absolutely reffed off the park. And yes, i know this is an Aussie whinging about the ref.

In what way were they reffed off the park? The calls that Cheika was seen whinging about (with his constant nodding yes men) and others have also whined about here were not even close calls. The only exception being the ball touching (maybe) the line while Beale jogged and watched it. Hooper was a justified yellow for constant infringements, and he was offside for the final one with hands on the ground in front of the line (its been refereed that way for a coupe of years now, he was in front of the ball kicker for Korobiete's try and knew it but kept running the 7 line, and Moore was obstructing in front of the Korobiete for the final attempt. Beale's yellow has been one for years and he in no way attempted to intercept that ball. (Itoje on the side of the maul was not a knock on the contact was illegal with the half back's arm (offside) and Genia dropped it) The only time I thought the ref was completely wrong was the maul where Hooper was obviously tackled off the ground as he is not 7'5" and the English obviously engaged in the drive before he was on the ground and they "won" a turn over from that illegality. In no way were they reffed off the park. They conceded the same penalties in the same positions last week as well, and even against Japan when the latter managed to exert a bit of pressure. It is a factor of poor defence structures as I said.

 

[Gnostic]

I note you are a Randwick lad so your views should be taken seriously and objectively. However they are merely your views, the views of Owen Finegan when I was talking to him last night were that he has done a tremendous job with getting the Wallabies to where they are with limited depth, no money (comparatively) and a hopeless administrative body. My views are more aligned with his than yours.

Owen is a bit biased by friendship/team mate status so also need to be viewed objectively. Just as we needed to be objective with the efforts of The Master Coach Robbie Deans in the same circumstances.

 

[Kev]

It is a factor of poor defence structures as I said.

I haven't re-watched the match but I don't see how it was it poor defence structures last night? We didn't concede any points when we were down to 13/14 men. The first English try came from a KB (Kurtley Beale) brain fade. The rest of the English tries came in the last few minutes when the boys were completely gassed and pretty much gave up mentally.

 

[KOB1987]

The problem you have Gnostic is that there is no evidence to suggest that whatever defensive structures you would put in place would yield better results. The weaknesses of our individual players means that we have to make compromises and revert to unorthodox measures which means that we take risks but the intended outcome is that we score more points than we concede. If we had 3 more Kuridrani's we could plausibly revert to a stock standard drift defense and just play 10 man rugby. But when we lose in those circumstances due to them scoring more tries than us to you still blame the defensive structures?

 

[Up the Guts]

Alright looks like we've descended into a who's to blame contest: the ref or Cheika, the coaching setup and the Administration.

If you take a step back though it was hardly an awful performance, nowhere near the Sydney test, we were in it for almost all of the game until a couple of late tries. Some of the ref's calls were dicey but probably not as bad when you take a step back. In the same vain, just because we lost tonight doesn't rule out the good signs the Wallabies have been starting to show under Cheika, granted there are still a couple of defensive issues and a lack of depth in a few areas.
Administration still sucks though. It wasn't great losing but if we can beat Scotland (who are actually a very good side) I still feel Australian Rugby is on an upward trend with depth building and a much more promising Super and Test season to look forward to next year.

 

[Viking]

I haven't re-watched the match but I don't see how it was it poor defence structures last night? We didn't concede any points when we were down to 13/14 men. The first English try came from a KB (Kurtley Beale) brain fade. The rest of the English tries came in the last few minutes when the boys were completely gassed and pretty much gave up mentally.

Agreed, the defensive effort was spot on. To hold them off any points with 14 men for 20mins (13 men for a couple) was great work. I think the replacements and mental fatigue hit us in the last 10mins. England played for 80min we played for 70mins. After cooling down too. I think we can take blame away from the refs. Our players all had the chance to change the 50/50 calls but didn't. I don't think our players understand that small errors, or small indecisions can have big ramifications. Foley could have easily kicked the first penalty. Would have set a different tone to the game, especially around our decision to go for touch instead of more points at future penalties. Kororibotie needed to dive on the ball for Hoopers try - a very rookie mistake. On the other end Jonathan Joseph does exactly what korobiate should have done and gets 7 points in the process. Hooper should have learned from his yellow against Wales and stayed on side. No yellow received. Beale could have reached the ball near touch but gave up. Beale shouldn't have knocked the ball down so blatantly. Kuridrani should have caught the offload from Kerevi. Moore could have ran a better line instead of the same line Koro was running. All these things were in the hands of the player not the ref. Never leave it up to the ref because as we now know.. it doesn't always go your way. Simply, not clinical enough.

 

[boyo]

Which penalties specifically, and how are they any different to other players penalties?


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I don't have specific examples - I'm sure that you could find them. The penalties of which I speak seem to occur near the goal-line. That is my point. If you disagree, so be it.

 

[Viking]

Alright looks like we've descended into a who's to blame contest: the ref or Cheika, the coaching setup and the Administration.

If you take a step back though it was hardly an awful performance, nowhere near the Sydney test, we were in it for almost all of the game until a couple of late tries. Some of the refs calls were dicey but probably not as bad when you take a step back. In the same vain, just because we lost tonight doesn't rule out the good signs the Wallabies have been starting to show under Cheika, granted there are still a couple of defensive issues and a lack of depth in a few areas.
Administration still sucks though.

Refer to my previous post. It's the players fault. Poor decision making in key moments. Cheika shouldn't have to coach Koro to dive on the ball and slide to the line instead of trying to soccer kick it. Would any coach actually practise this? No. Or Beale giving up the run for the ball in touch. Can't coach that. Hooper giving away penalties near the line - not coaching either.

 

[wamberal]

Look, chaps, maybe this has been said before, but from where I sat the team did bloody well, considering everything. It is the end of a bloody hard season, they are without two of their very best players, and they did really well standing up when they were short-handed.

 

[TOCC]

I don't have specific examples - I'm sure that you could find them. The penalties of which I speak seem to occur near the goal-line. That is my point. If you disagree, so be it.

It’s not that I disagree, I just don’t know which ones you’re talking about or how they’re any worse then the penalties other players have committed near the goal line.

 

[Gnostic]

I haven't re-watched the match but I don't see how it was it poor defence structures last night? We didn't concede any points when we were down to 13/14 men. The first English try came from a KB (Kurtley Beale) brain fade. The rest of the English tries came in the last few minutes when the boys were completely gassed and pretty much gave up mentally.

I don't think you understand the effect the defensive pattern is having or the flow on pressures. Have a look at the line breaks this season and how they were achieved against the Wallabies and also when why and how the penalties were conceded. The scrambling defence as I said is of the highest order, but that takes a toll and has consequences in penalties. The lack of points when they are down players also points towards scrambling defence, this week and last.

 

[Gnostic]

Look, chaps, maybe this has been said before, but from where I sat the team did bloody well, considering everything. It is the end of a bloody hard season, they are without two of their very best players, and they did really well standing up when they were short-handed.

Do you cut and paste every week Wamberal.