If Robbie goes who should replace him as Wallabies coach?

[mark_s]

Except McCaw was back in form this year.

 

[Train Without a Station]

I find it interesting people saying the current AB side is one the best ever. If you compare the packs from 2011 to now you lose Kaino and Thorn and gain Messam and Romano/Retallick. The 2011 pack is much stronger on paper.

Exactly. In addition Hore and Mealamu are a year older and have probably declined a little in that year also. You cannot say Carter is in his career best form either. He is obviously still playing great rugby, but would not be considered to be at the peak of his power. Aaron Smith started great but tailed off a little. You could not compare him to Weepu in the RWC who was immense. Would you say Conrad Smith is better than Umaga?

I will happily admit that Dagg is probably the strongest fullback they have had in the last couple of decades, McCaw is probably at the peak of his powers and could only be compared to Jones, and would concede to somebody if they felt Read was the best No. 8 of this time.

If you have a look at our team though, would you keep to many when presented with options from the past 2 decades? Possibly Moore. Maybe Genia, though maybe not. Would you even keep Digby when you had Campese, Tune, Moon and a lot of others to pick from? If anybody says Pocock they need to look past the muscles.

 

[Ruggo]

Bit of overkill on the Dagg call me thinks. He has not passed Christian Cullen yet.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Sorry fair call. I was actually trying to be as objective as possible and all I could think of was Mils and felt he was probably overtaking him.

 

[Braveheart81]

I find it interesting people saying the current AB side is one the best ever. If you compare the packs from 2011 to now you lose Kaino and Thorn and gain Messam and Romano/Retallick. The 2011 pack is much stronger on paper.

It's the same team. The undefeated streak was from the Brisbane Bledisloe before the RWC until they lost to England.

I completely agree that the loss of Thorn and Kaino makes it a worse side (although Messam got better and better as the test season wore on) but for all intents and purposes, all these players are part of this All Blacks squad.

 

[Athilnaur]

​

Totallity Tony

0 vote(s) ​

0.0%​

​

Nucifora

4 vote(s)​

4.7%​

*​

Link

60 vote(s)​

70.6%​

​

White

11 vote(s)​

12.9%​

​

A temporary placement while we recruit globally

10 vote(s)​

11.8%​

Good to see Nuci and his mum frequent G&GR, but who were the other two voters for him? Also surprised to see ten votes for recruit globally, guess a few read into that as due process.

Like everyone here I'll be watching Deans performance closely, hoping beyond hope that 2012 was the year Robbie decided we had to have playing basic rugby before resuming a more dynamic game suited to a backline that only 13 months ago was vaunted by many (outside NZ at least, ok..., me) as the best backline in rugby. Not holding my breath Robbie, sort it out!

PS Robbie did get one big tick from me, I bloody loathe losing to the Poms. Loathe. Beating the Poms, $10 and one get out of jail free card.. Beating them a week before they pound the kiwis... priceless.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I don't think it's a case that everyone else is weak right now. If Australia is far worse than we have been historically and we've still been there or thereabouts as the second best team in the world in recent years then effectively you're saying that every team in world rugby is crap and New Zealand just wins by default.

I think it's far more likely that New Zealand do have a great team right now.

To take a random 'great' All Blacks team, let's look at the team that beat Australia 30-9 at Concord Oval in 1988. This was during their previous undefeated reign (that they matched before losing to England).

15 - John Gallagher
14 - John Kirwan
13 - Joe Stanley
12 - John Schuster
11 - Terry Wright
10 - Grant Fox
9 - Bruce Deans
8 - Buck Shelford (c)
7 - Michael Jones
6 - Alan Whetton
5 - Gary Whetton
4 - Murray Pierce
3 - Richard Loe
2 - Sean Fitzpatrick
1 - Steve McDowell

If you look forward a year you could add players like Graham Bachop, Zinzan Brooke, Ian Jones, and Walter Little to the list.

How many of these players would you slot into the current All Blacks side? Michael Jones, Buck Shelford and Grant Fox are the standouts from this team and you'd have to argue pretty hard for any of them to be ahead of McCaw, Read and Carter.

Fitzpatrick is an AB great but so is Mealamu. At their best, it's pretty hard to split them.

I think there is very much a theme of rose coloured glasses whereby everyone thinks that the All Blacks and Wallabies were much better in the past and the current lot are average and are only on top because Australia is so bad.

I've heard very good things about the coaching of the number 9 in that team- maybe we should be thinking about him.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Rob42]

Seen the photo that RugbyHeaven.com.au currently has paired with this headline on their front page?:

Deans wanted to be 'the martyr': Hansen


Champagne work by the photo editor there.

 

[The Red Baron]

Good to see Nuci and his mum frequent G&GR, but who were the other two voters for him? Also surprised to see ten votes for recruit globally, guess a few read into that as due process.

Ahem..

If anyone is wondering who voted for Nuci, that was me sorry. Purely unintentional.

I had a mouse click fail and apologised on the first page. That clears another one up, so the question now is, who was the other person that voted for Nuci?

 

[Scotty]

I don't think it's a case that everyone else is weak right now. If Australia is far worse than we have been historically and we've still been there or thereabouts as the second best team in the world in recent years then effectively you're saying that every team in world rugby is crap and New Zealand just wins by default.

I think that is the case right there for everyone else being weak. Not the fact that the All Blacks are so far in front, because they are very very good, but because we have been able to hold onto 2nd or 3rd despite being pretty average and very inconsistent. England, Wales, Ireland, South Africa, France and Australia all range from very good to very poor. The ABs are the only ones that are consistently good to very good.

So yes, I think the competition for the ABs is pretty crap right now. (But not trying to take away how good they are - because they still beat most teams that are having their 'on' day.)

 

[Braveheart81]

I agree that the other top sides are inconsistent and far from what you'd call great sides on an historical basis for those countries.

I don't think Australia is historically weak right now. I think we're just average. Our team around the time of the 1991 RWC and a couple of years afterwards and our team for most of the time between 1999 to 2003 have to be our best two eras since the grand slam team of 1984.

 

[Scotty]

We are weak, thus team would be beaten 7-8 times out of ten by the 1991 and 1999 sides (all things being equal).

It has been around 11 years since we had great and consistent performances, but the real issue is that we are getting more inconsistent and weaker each year under Deans.

It is a ridiculous situation when you compare him to Connolly. One is given 18 months, fails at the world cup and is shown the door without any real consideration for re-appointment. The other is re-appointed despite not meeting the stated benchmarks, fails at the world cup and it now appears will be rewarded by a Lions series. Appalling.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I think Knuckles was always going to walk after RWC2007 from memory.

 

[Scotty]

I think that was a general view at the time but not necessarily true. In fact I believe he came out and said he wanted to keep the job (either after the rwc or the next year).

 

[Brumbieman]

Are people here actually saying this AB is awesome?


They were piss poor all year, and played about 50mins of genuinely good rugby. Besides that they were w shadow of their former selves. Only problem was that everyone else was worse.