JON sets Wallabies the target of becoming No1 by end 2012

[The Big I]

Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill has set the Wallabies the task of knocking New Zealand off their No.1 perch by the end of 2012.


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Australia retained second spot on the IRB rankings despite a disappointing Rugby World Cup 2011, where they finished third behind runners-up France and champions, the All Blacks.

The ARU board's annual review is currently underway, with coach Robbie Deans and high performance manager David Nucifora making a presentation, and O'Neill said its task was to identify how Australia could get back to the top.



"We're looking for ways to improve the playing group and, at the coaching level, our performance such that in 12 months' time we're No.1 in the world, not No.2," O'Neill said.

"We can implement whatever comes out of that in the new year.

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"It's very measured, it's very balanced, it's got substance, it's got credibility and the leadership group of the Wallabies will be involved in terms of being interviewed."

Asked how realistic it was to supplant long-time world No.1 side New Zealand by the end of next year, O'Neill said: "We're very aspirational ... we'd like to think that we can produce the form on the paddock to be No.1 by this time next year."

Senior Wallabies will provide their input before heading to Europe this weekend for matches against the Barbarians at Twickenham and Wales in Cardiff.

A sub-committee comprised of chairman Brett Robinson and former Wallabies Michael Hawker, John Eales and Mark Connors will make recommendations to the board on various matters - including the support staff for Deans - by next February.

Ascending to the top spot was also on Wallabies captain James Horwill's mind as he prepared to lead the team overseas for the first time since the World Cup.

"We didn't do what we wanted to achieve over in New Zealand," Horwill said.

"For us to come back again, we start now and this is our next performance post the World Cup.

"This is our time to get to that No.1 world ranking and that's our aim, and obviously building to get as much silverware as possible in every match that we've got coming up."

The Queensland Reds lock said Australia had to be more consistent if they wanted to knock the All Blacks off their perch.

"It's probably easier said than done, we are No.2 in the world at the moment, we want to be No.1," Horwill said.

"But to go that next step is probably the biggest step we're going to have to take, so we're identifying things we can improve in our game to be a better team.

"That's what we're worried about now. It can be started by playing these two games on this tour."

O'Neill stressed while Australia fell short in their World Cup campaign, 2011 had included notable achievements such as the Tri Nations title and Queensland's Super Rugby triumph.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/wallabies/aru-boss-john-oneill-sets-wallabies-the-target-of-becoming-no1-ranked-side-by-end-of-2012/story-e6frf55l-1226197129801


Sounds like Jon is sending over some assasins over the ditch:lmao:

 

[Sully]

To be ranked #1 should always have been our goal! It needs to be built from the bottom up and we all need to change our attitudes about our position in world rugby. I don't want to run with the big dogs I want the big dogs to run with us!

 

[louie]

This is as close you'll get to him attempting that no one in the administration thought Australia would do well that the world cup and that deans would keep his job regardless.

 

[Schadenfreude]

The trouble is NZ are consistently the best. To consistently be better the Wobblies have quite a long way to go. I want to see the deliverables.

Penalised at less than 5% of Scrums.
Win 90% of own lineout
Halve the regularity of unforced turnovers.
20% more turnovers.
30% less missed tackles.
100% less Ashley-Coopers
40% less injuries.

If at the end they they say Oh well we wanted to be No 1 but we're not - I want to see the evidence of a plan - aspirational is wank without a plan.

 

[Army_Gav]

Lesson here is, change our strip to black, instruct Pocock to do whatever, should result in #1 status.

 

[Swat]

I don't know where the AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) hate is coming from, I see him as the ultimate player to have on the bench but I don't think the wallabies would have done much better without him in recent times.

 

[daz]

It's very measured, it's very balanced, it's got substance, it's got credibility

Oh, the irony....

O'Neill stressed while Australia fell short in their World Cup campaign, 2011 had included notable achievements such as the Tri Nations title and Queensland's Super Rugby triumph.

We have fuck all from the first 3 years, because we were building and learning. Ok, I'll cop that, but to say 2011 was notable? We won a reduced 3N comp against second string teams. The Reds staff and players won the S15, not the ARU or the Wallabies. And, and, fucking and, we had a pretty ordinary RWC campaign when we were told this was what the last 4 years had been all about.

Yes, I'm being illogical and illogically angry. Read my fucking signature.....

 

[Swat]

I thought the true irony was that JON seems to be setting meaningful KPIs for the players. It's good to be a coach

 

[tigerland12]

I do love how critical we are of the Wallabies.

We have been 2/3 in the world for a long time now, we recently won the tri-nations over NZ and South Africa and not to mention the side which has the number one ranking is possibly the best national sporting team in history, we aren't doing that bad.

But alas, I'm with most of you aswell, consistantly frustrating matches, poor coaching, not playing as a cohesive team. Oh well, number 2 still aint bad considering how shit we played at the WC.....right?

 

[DPK]

Does this mean they're going to do their most important job and bring back the fucking Bledisloe!?

 

[Hawko]

Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill has set the Wallabies the task of knocking New Zealand off their No.1 perch by the end of 2012.

The ARU board's annual review is currently underway, with coach Robbie Deans and high performance manager David Nucifora making a presentation, and O'Neill said its task was to identify how Australia could get back to the top.

"We're looking for ways to improve the playing group and, at the coaching level, our performance such that in 12 months' time we're No.1 in the world, not No.2," O'Neill said.

"We can implement whatever comes out of that in the new year.

"It's very measured, it's very balanced, it's got substance, it's got credibility and the leadership group of the Wallabies will be involved in terms of being interviewed."

Asked how realistic it was to supplant long-time world No.1 side New Zealand by the end of next year, O'Neill said: "We're very aspirational ... we'd like to think that we can produce the form on the paddock to be No.1 by this time next year." Senior Wallabies will provide their input before heading to Europe this weekend for matches against the Barbarians at Twickenham and Wales in Cardiff.

A sub-committee comprised of chairman Brett Robinson and former Wallabies Michael Hawker, John Eales and Mark Connors will make recommendations to the board on various matters - including the support staff for Deans - by next February.

O'Neill stressed while Australia fell short in their World Cup campaign, 2011 had included notable achievements such as the Tri Nations title and Queensland's Super Rugby triumph.

This is so full of half-truths and management-speak that it could almost be parody. Its clear Deans didn't write the press release, because it is at least comprehensible. But a number of points of issue need to be taken:

1. The presentations to the Board by Deans and Nucifora, the two most senior coaches, do not appear to be balanced off by any independent report. Rule 1: When attempting a whitewash make sure no dissenting opinions are presented.
2. The only other report the Board appears to be considering is feedback from four Australian former players who are on the Board. Four Board members who kowtowed to JON on the re-appointment of Deans before the disaster unfolded.
3. Its clear that at least some of the assistant coaches are going to be moved on. The word scapegoat comes to mind. The biblical derivation of the word is from the practise of taking a goat outside the camp and slaughtering it, thus expiating all the sins of those inside the camp. How appropriate! The Board and Deans will be exonerated by the sacrifice of Jim Williams et al.
4. "The leadership group of the Wallabies will be interviewed". So what will the leadership group do in these interviews? Undermine the people who have selected them in the past and who are tasked with selecting them in the future? Not bloody likely.
5. JON claims that the review is "measured, balanced, got substance, got credibility". Only if you want the outcome of the review to be predetermined. Given the terrible quality of play and the extremely lucky results, a proper review would have investigated what we need to change to make sure we actually get back to a real number 2, not blather on about overtaking the Kiwi's and getting to number 1.

The politics of what JON is doing is, however, clear. As CEO he knows he is under the pump for the Deans reappointment. So he has laid down a target that Deans is unlikely to reach which will allow him in twelve months time to pull it out of the satchell. If he's getting hammered because the results are poor, then Deans can be "justifiably" sacrificed twelve months before the Lions tour, the success of which is supposed to be JON's crowning gift to Australian rugby. If the results are reasonable but we're not number 1 then he can blather on about moving in the right direction. If by some happenstance we do get there then he's the hero who set the benchmark and therefore deserves the accolades.

Surely Deans is smart enough to know he is being set up.

 

[Hawko]

I don't know where the AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) hate is coming from, I see him as the ultimate player to have on the bench but I don't think the wallabies would have done much better without him in recent times.

My reading of this is that AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) is a "type". A player who is repeatedly played out of position and moved around such that his performance nosedives. There have been a number of "AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)'s" in the Wallabies in the last two years.

 

[mark_s]

Beautiful statement from JON. He is on his way out anyway and has nothing personally to lose.

 

[Hardtackle]

SPOT ON HAWKO. Waste of everyone's time and money.

 

[Army_Gav]

I don't have a problem with this. The Australia Sports psyche generally doesn't have an issue too, we are optimistic achievers.

Couple of examples:
- Win against the ABs in Hong Kong 2010, it was a dead rubber, but we beat them and loved every minute of it
- The 3rd place playoff, means jack shit, but we broke our Eden Park hoodoo

Watch the 'Cup of Dreams' you really get an understanding of Australian sporting culture and psyche via the opposite, being the Kiwis.

As for JON, he is like one of those relatives with good attentions, but very annoying tendencies. There's the door.

 

[Bruce Ross]

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by having a committee which will interview those who got us into this mess and then spend three long months committeeing before telling us how to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in four words: we'd like to think. We’d like to think that we can produce the form on the paddock to achieve victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.

 

[RedsHappy]

This is so full of half-truths and management-speak that it could almost be parody. .....

Hawko, excellent work.

This manoeuvre of JO'N to exploit the hapless docility of the Australian rugby media via the ploy of issuing these impressive sounding goals and KPIs that have zero considered substance nor are backed by any form of credible detailed plan, is not new.

We were fed a diet of this from 2008 onwards when immediate goals of BCs and 3N wins (via Deans) were outlined, and when by late 2009 it became clear we were not even getting close to attaining these avowed trophies, the ARU's goal posts were explicitly moved to state that 'the real goal' for the Deans recruitment was a RWC win, 'the true triumph' that should be overriding in its importance. And the 2009 onwards Wallabies were 'learning and building' towards that great, potentially crowning moment in late 2011. After a distinctly mediocre and 'disappointing' RWC we have a new enticement of 1 mm depth from JO'N: be the world's no 1 team by end 2012. We all now know - this has no substance, nor does that really matter to the 2011 ARU, what matters is the elite's self-preservation on large salaries, the deflection of well-deserved criticism and the ensuring that the Australian rugby public is fed a superficial diet of sparkling optimism to keep their spirits up.

Is it not evident to any objective observer of these ridiculous charades and the ludicrous reappointment of Deans (and JO'N) irrespective of achievement level, that (a) JO'N has been in this senior job far too long (b) the ARU's board is an epitome of introverted self-indulgence and poor governance and (c) until these matters of core leadership quality at the highest level are fixed, rugby in Australia will suffer and will be likely to further decline in terms of relative code market share in Australia.

The problem with Australian rugby has nothing to do with the regularly alleged lack of depth and such like superficial cop-outs; rather, it's the lack of competence and depth in its management elites in most instances. The sole genuine success for Australian rugby in recent years - the massive financial and playing revival of rugby in QLD capped by the S15 victory - had as its proven genesis the total removal and replacement of every position of senior executive management and coaching within the QRU. Surely observers can now appreciate that these glaring management facts and their positive outcomes are not statistical coincidences in the context of the rugby totality in Australia.

 

[fatprop]

So JON wants us to be No. 1 - fair enough, we don't want to be No 5, what would be the ARU's goal if not that?

As for the review,

A sub-committee comprised of chairman Brett Robinson and former Wallabies Michael Hawker, John Eales and Mark Connors will make recommendations to the board on various matters - including the support staff for Deans - by next February.

Well the sub-committee seems to be pretty solid (to question their integrity is lame as far as I care), lets see what they come out with.

The reality is that we don't need a cleanout or a witch hunt, we aren't crap, we are No 2 or 3 wanting to be 1st in the world, not 10th.

 

[Swat]

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by having a committee which will interview those who got us into this mess and then spend three long months committeeing before telling us how to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in four words: we'd like to think. We’d like to think that we can produce the form on the paddock to achieve victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.

Nice Bruce, very nice. I pictured you wearing a bowker hat and smoking a cigar whilst delivering that speech...

 

[EVERYFWDTHINKTHEYREA6OR7]

We need more power lifters and pie eating kids.