LOCKED: Time to Sack Deans?

[DPK]

Good point. ACT C.

The guys we can build around are: Robinson, Moore/TPN, Pocock, Elsom, Genia. Only two of these have been available for most test matches so far this season, so it is pretty hard to build a team around players that aren't there.

However he does need to find a few more backs to build the team around. Giteau isn't working. Hopefully QC (Quade Cooper) will continue his good form and improve his defense. Robbie needs to settle on a backline position for AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), as he is the only other guy that you could build around (well Ioane is a certain starter, but you can't really build around a winger).

You can build around a player within the team as well; If QC (Quade Cooper) is going to be the ten, the the backline should be built around him. That is, put the players outside him that he and genia can best use to get the points so we can win.

If you build the backline around QC (Quade Cooper), I guess you could say he's the foundations. If QC (Quade Cooper) is the foundations, dont put other guys that need the backline built around them to be effective (Giteau) in the same backline.

 

[Scarfman]

OK, my last point: I don't agree that we should all shrug our shoulders and say - we're just not as good as we used to be. Did Link McKenzie do that? Where's the ANZAC spirit?

How can you say - "we just don't have the cattle" when people like Kane Douglas and Al Baxter can't get a run? When people like Brown and Cross/Cummins keep getting selected? When Gits is played at 10 for about 2 years too long? When we put AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) at fullback with the aim - apparently - of kicking mindless midfield bombs?

I put the blame fair and square with Deans.

Scarf out.

 

[RedsHappy]

1. RH - you certainly love having it both ways don't you? 2. Selection apparently is such a baseline pre-requisite that Deans deserves no credit, but if he picks the 'wrong guys' he's rubbish. 3. None of the performing players he's developed are his successes - they were all done by Phil Mooney, but the ones you perceive as not performing so well need to be chalked against Deans. 4. You've previously railed about how much time a head coach has on his hands, that he should also be responsible for development pathways, but above you state that Deans should get no credit for the U20s or 7s successes. 5. Deans is by no means untouchable, but if I'm to find your and other posters' arguments against Deans credible, you guys need to which side of these arguments you're gonna use and try sticking to them.

Thanks Gagger. I've (only) added numbers above to enable a clear response.

1. No. Whilst you don't agree with me on this - and fair enough - I have at least tried to contribute on GAGR to a quite broad assessment of why Australian Wallabies rugby is where it is today and why it is there and where RD fits in that scheme. I think overall my arguments are reasonably consistent, though I am sure I have much to learn from healthy debate here and elsewhere. I have learnt greatly from many good posters here, and I appreciate them. And I could easily be wrong in my assessments.
2. That's not what I said. What I did say is that an objective analysis of the 'a major Deans' contribution has been promoting youth and new players' line of argument must balance the seeming successes of this selection attribute with the seeming flops, or semi-flops, of this attribute, so that the score card is balanced up and a 'net not gross' outcome assessment is made. (Btw, I have never used the words 'he's rubbish' to describe RD in any place.)
3. No. What I did say is that IMO it is often argued (not necessarily by you, but by many others I have seen) that 'Deans discovered Genia and Cooper and Pocock and wow does that show he's a fine coach'. I think that's superficial and under-credits guys like Mooney who took risks with these players when it was hardest to take them. I have never argued that Deans deserves no credit for promoting Cooper et al into the Wallabies. But I do argue that this is precisely what any competent elite coach is meant to do as baseline in building a winning team, and it is far from sufficient to justify an uncritical overall assessment of an elite coach's most essential achievement level (which I unashamedly consider to be w-l ratio after 2 full seasons, and then, more so, after 3, and so on.). Equally, I think elite coaches must get anti-credit for selections that perform _consistently_ poorly over multiple games and thus mar the total team's chances of winning. Balanced score card thinking again.
4. Didn't quite state that Deans should get no credit for these pathways. Rather, I was/am amused that, of recent vintage, he now seems to some to be given major credit for them wrt 2010's better results from them. I have been back to my sources whom are v close to the 7s and U20s and they are adamant that these recent pathways' positive progress are rightly credited to Nucifora and O'Connor and the HPU, but where RD has added value is at an overall policy level in saying that: 7s are an integral pathway to the Wallabies and S14, and that excellent younger potential Wallabies should ideally play in and develop in the U20s. That is, he has generally strengthened the role of these pathways at a strategic level, but has not been much involved in execution or actual development within them. So, a positive there, but not a 'this is all Deans' fine work in making these teams more successful this year than last'.
5. Gagger, I have a high regard for your opinion and GAGR (as you know). But I am not here trying to earn your approval of 'grant of credibility'. I am here to enrich my knowledge of the game and, more particularly, to help me in my own mind understand why the Wallabies (and their fan base) have deteriorated so greatly in the last 5-10 years and why that deterioration is seemingly continuing to this day. In any event, it's irrefutable results that (ultimately) count, my commentary is quite irrelevant, no illusions there. IMO, by September 11, 2010 (not long) a definitive assessment of Dean's coaching capability and achievement in Australia will be both possible and essential. I have argued elsewhere why I consider any form of 'only assess Deans on an RWC win' as highly dangerous for the development of our code, and, just as important, indirectly insulting to Australian rugby fans who deserve (and pay in the hope of) entertaining, dynamic and (overall) winning Wallaby ways year in, year out, not just in one 14 day period that can only ever occur once in every 4 years and that most everyday rugby fans will never attend (and then btw there is serious derived issue of: what happens if we fail at that time and it's more or less all we've focussed upon and built our hopes on?).

 

[waratahjesus]

You can build around a player within the team as well; If QC (Quade Cooper) is going to be the ten, the the backline should be built around him. That is, put the players outside him that he and genia can best use to get the points so we can win.

If you build the backline around QC (Quade Cooper), I guess you could say he's the foundations. If QC (Quade Cooper) is the foundations, dont put other guys that need the backline built around them to be effective (Giteau) in the same backline.

but if your going to lay a foundation to build on, it has to be something that is strong enough to support the others around it. Not a knock on Quade who has had a wonderful year, but in the test arena, is he a foundation or a piece? and if he has a bad trot of form is that forgivable cos we have built around him?

i would much prefer to sit down and nut out a team than pick a group of players based on super 14 form. it often doesnt translate into tests anyway and certain players are better to play against certain countries. There professional footballers, its what they do, when i get someone knew working with me, i dont forget how to work myself and im expected to work out how to communicate and work with them without my workload going down, i dont think its to far fetched to ask someone on a shitload more salary to do the same. Horses for courses, Quade on in the last 30 to dance around tired people and exploit gaps out wide and robbie to fark off back to new zealand and not get there national job as they already know he is overrated.

 

[Ruggo]

Robinson is a great prospect and has showed already that he's up to it, but right now is still settling in IMO.

If TPN can play a full season without injury then I'll eat my hat. But again a genuine player that could have a massive future if can get regular time. Moore is a good player and a real workhorse, but a bit more certainty around him in terms of personnel would help him greatly.

Pocock and Genia are "the future", as most would readily accept. But they are just that, and when you're the coach, you need "the present" and IMO he simply doesn't have that. Tough gig.

I completely agree with what you and Scotty have been saying. When fully fit, the payers I see us building a team around are TPN, Robinson, Horwill, Pockock, Genia. Key backs include Cooper, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), Barnes and Digby.

 

[Gnostic]

The issue is for me is that there does not appear (except from a few posters) any real critical review of Deans. Hence my thread. The responses to the thread with the opening reply being one word answers to a reasonably detailed OP and others since only reinforce this view on me.

The fact that the media in general seem to have a brief snipe at him in an off week regarding the issues many of us have raised such as selection and use of the bench and then get back on the band wagon doesn't help.

No organisation or business or team can improve without critical review from all the stake holders. I want the Wallabies to improve and now that I am have not seen any improvement in two years I am asking why. All I am getting is the same woeful admissions of defeat "We have injuries, we have no depth". Things are no different in Oz Rugby now to what they have been in the past. I am not asking for a win every week. I am not asking that the Wallabies even win, I just want to see them play well. How long is it since we have seen a truly applied performance from the Wallabies, Brisveagas last year? Before that?

 

[RedsHappy]

OK, my last point: I don't agree that we should all shrug our shoulders and say - we're just not as good as we used to be. Did Link McKenzie do that? Where's the ANZAC spirit? How can you say - "we just don't have the cattle" when people like Kane Douglas and Al Baxter can't get a run? When people like Brown and Cross/Cummins keep getting selected? When Gits is played at 10 for about 2 years too long? When we put AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) at fullback with the aim - apparently - of kicking mindless midfield bombs? I put the blame fair and square with Deans. Scarf out.

Scarf,as you'd know, I am in general agreement with you and thanks for putting it so pithily. Imagine if other Australian major sports had been so defeatist! (In fact, if I may, I recall how in the late '80s large tracts of the Aus cricketing media argued the West Indies had such superior talent to Australia's that we might as well pack up and accept a new lowly status in the world game....and then along came one gritty Alan Border (+others) and changed the whole team/playing mindset etc and presaged the next golden era.)

I cannot but help compare how we have moved from the general tone afoot re Deans upon the Test win in Brisbane 2009 - 'Deans is building something special with these players, coach is really reviving these Wallabies in a great new direction' - to same time 2010 and we have so many passionate posters here who now say the whole enterprise is more a less a (comparative) disaster largely the fault of second rate players and 'the lack of Australian depth' (vs barely any responsibility upon coaches/coaching, rather it is almost if we are sympathetic that poor Deans and his coaches have to suffer with such ordinary cattle).

 

[I like to watch]

RedsH,
Yeah you are right that supporters are defeatists by accepting the status quo.
It is also a little realistic from those defeatists.
Our expectations of a being on par with the Boks & AB's is alittle optimistic IMO.
Registered Rugby players in each of the other countries far exceeds ours. They both have had for many years a tier below S14 of a much higher standard than our club Rugby.
It is rational to expect with a larger base,and a better structure each of these countries develop more High calibre players.
I have heard it said before that the glory days of macqueen etc was more a matter of an exceptional "crop" of players that "punched above their weight" rather than that being the standard we should expect year in year out.
That being said each new year I am still hopeful that we can win the 3N etc.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I tend to agree with those who are alarmed at the position of "lots of injuries, no depth etc". While both of those things are somewhat true, we've produced very, very good teams in the past under similar circumstances. I was never in favour of how Deans got the job, but we also have to look at who else was available at the time. There weren't a lot of top class coaches putting their hands up for the position, certainly none with Deans' track record. He was also dealing with a generational change in the squad post the RWC 2007 debacle. I'd be interested to know who other posters would have picked in preference? At the time, I favoured Scott Johnson myself. Was Link even in the running? I think he'd already committed to Stade, IIRC.

Had it been me, there would have been a few players I would have been tempted to punt right from the word go. If the group you have don't perform, then I think it's time to change the coach, the strategy and/or the players. With Knuckles not wanting the job post the RWC, then at least one of those things had to change anyway. As an outsider, it appears to me that several of the elder statesmen of the team didn't totally buy into the new game plan and it's always going to be a case of the coach or the player who has to go in that situation. And we all know that it was never going to be Deans.

 

[louie]

one could say that we built the team around gits, when he was in form, post lark years, and his form (and the team) has gone to shit.

 

[ACT Crusader]

Reds you really can't compare cricket and rugby as team sports. Rugby has so many more team related variables that cricket simply does not have. It's largely an individual sport with other guys in white watching on.

Do the players have confidence in the guy standing next to him. It's no coincidence that Giteau became a freaking good 2nd 5 when playing between Bernie and the Evil Wizard. Do you think Giteau ever have to worry about what was happening either side of him. All he basically had to do was "fit in" and then play his natural game which was class. It's got nothing to do with hand holding, but everything to do with trusting the bugger next to you.

I would hazard a guess that there isn't much trust within the squad. There aren't the level of experienced (or mature) heads that that trust can be built on. If someone tells me different then I'd listen, but if there is any trust within this squad surely that would be only based on Super form.

Deans role in this should not be underestimated. He is there to try and build that. Problem is he can't settle on a core group of say 10-12 players that would pick themselves and settle his starting XV. Its been hit and miss with his selections and this has accentuated many of the problems.

Unfortunately I just don't see those old heads in the Wallabies that will get them out of a hole in say the 60th minute when the opposition score and the Wallabies lose a lead that they've held for 59 minutes.

 

[Cutter]

Australian rugby had two other contact football codes to assist it's professional approach. As a result we had a huge headstart. It took the ABs a while to adjust and the Boks even longer. Now that the Boks have adjusted we are behind the curve because of their depth. The number of South Africans playing rugby in Europe dwarfs the number of Australians. If rugby didn't compete with AFL and league here it would be a different story as our playing stocks would be far higher. But it does and it isn't.

Deans didn't create our structural problems, but moreso than any of his modern predecessors, he is being hampered by them.

 

[RedsHappy]

The issue is for me is that there does not appear (except from a few posters) any real critical review of Deans. Hence my thread. The responses to the thread with the opening reply being one word answers to a reasonably detailed OP and others since only reinforce this view on me.The fact that the media in general seem to have a brief snipe at him in an off week regarding the issues many of us have raised such as selection and use of the bench and then get back on the band wagon doesn't help. No organisation or business or team can improve without critical review from all the stake holders. I want the Wallabies to improve and now that I am have not seen any improvement in two years I am asking why. All I am getting is the same woeful admissions of defeat "We have injuries, we have no depth". Things are no different in Oz Rugby now to what they have been in the past. I am not asking for a win every week. I am not asking that the Wallabies even win, I just want to see them play well. How long is it since we have seen a truly applied performance from the Wallabies, Brisveagas last year? Before that?

Gnostic, keep at it. For what it's worth I think you will find that it's coming down to two schools of thought, v broadly:

(1) One school believes that top quality coaching and leadership can make a huge, critical difference to a rugby team's capacity to win, even if the nation's professional player pool overall is say of B grade, and not A or A+, in terms of quality and depth.

(2) The other school believes that such coaching is a secondary and a way less important variable than this player pool grade as above, and that the player pool grade is sort of fixed in its win or lose capability, coaching will not affect it very much or add much to it, the outcomes will be largely pre-destined by the grade of the available player pool.

School 1 is very concerned re Deans' performance to date, and probably wants to see major changes in the coaching team soon. Amongst other things, School 1 tends to believe that the best coaching can alter a whole team's attitude to winning, and equally can potentially aid some key B players to become A. School 1 believes coaching and superior selection etc can be transformational.

School 2 is, if you will, more fatalistic and deterministic and assesses Deans as maybe OK to good, but moreover believes that changing coach wouldn't alter much as the player pool grade will not yield premium results until it is taken to the A or better level. School 2 will naturally assess injury levels as very important, as the pool is made more shallow. The particularly strong Deans supporters in School 2 logically consider that Deans best attribute is that he has helped increase player quality and depth overall and that this is the key to more victories over time.

 

[stoff]

Where's the ANZAC spirit?

I think the ABs have the monopoly on it at the moment.

 

[Gagger]

Gnostic, keep at it. For what it's worth I think you will find that it's coming down to two schools of thought, v broadly:

(1) Knee-jerk reactionary

(2) Visionary

Fixed! :fishing

More seriously....

My take on school 2 is that coaching is still seen as very important, but that the results we can all see don't mean that Deans is doing all the wrong things, or that he's doing enough wrong things to be replaced.

It is a view that there are deep, fundamental issues that he is wrestling with; the depth, skill level, culture and style of play of the Wallabies, and that the fundamental changes he is trying to bring about will take time.

It is a realistic view that when you are in the situation of having to make such fundamental changes, the usual single measure of win% is not all. When companies restructure for example, they expect to take a hit to their usual KPI of 'profit'. But to not re-structure due to it's short-medium term impact on your bottom line is poor business.

In the midst of such change people invariably get uncomfortable/lose sight of the bigger picture, but that doesn't make the change less necessary.

 

[Joe Blow]

He is running out of time Gagger and whilst we need to be patient there is no solid indication that progress is being made.

I am losing faith at this point and feel that Deans is unable to dig up the required ticker in these blokes that has served Wallaby rugby so well as underdogs in the past.
The problem is primarily in the forwards and it may be that the assistant coaches who guide the forwards are not doing a great job.

 

[rsea]

Redshappy - Success rely's on an array of factors for any squad and only success in all these area's + luck will deliver a successful outcome. Blaming the face of Australian Rugby for it's shortfalls might be easy but it's unlikely to be the primary issue. Personally I'd like to see JON held to account for killing off our 2nd tier, but I digress we're sharpening our pitchforks for another target here.

 

[Langthorne]

Fixed! :fishing
It is a realistic view that when you are in the situation of having to make such fundamental changes, the usual single measure of win% is not all. When companies restructure for example, they expect to take a hit to their usual KPI of 'profit'. But to not re-structure due to it's short-medium term impact on your bottom line is poor business.

In the midst of such change people invariably get uncomfortable/lose sight of the bigger picture, but that doesn't make the change less necessary.

There are plenty of examples of businesses, big or small, that 'restructured', ignored the discomfort of various 'non visionaries', and either suffered financially in both long and short term, or are now no longer in business. Of course the genius who instigated the restructure often moves on to a new project, leaving others to try to salvage the situation.

 

[RedsHappy]

Fixed! :fishing More seriously....My take on school 2 is that coaching is still seen as very important, but that the results we can all see don't mean that Deans is doing all the wrong things, or that he's doing enough wrong things to be replaced. It is a view that there are deep, fundamental issues that he is wrestling with; the depth, skill level, culture and style of play of the Wallabies, and that the fundamental changes he is trying to bring about will take time. It is a realistic view that when you are in the situation of having to make such fundamental changes, the usual single measure of win% is not all. When companies restructure for example, they expect to take a hit to their usual KPI of 'profit'. But to not re-structure due to it's short-medium term impact on your bottom line is poor business. In the midst of such change people invariably get uncomfortable/lose sight of the bigger picture, but that doesn't make the change less necessary.

Gagger, all noted. I especially think yr business analogy is pretty fair. I think one challenge for School 2 guys (we need some fun names for these Schools!) is: when and how do we know we have proper vindication for it? What are the KPIs that say: 'yes, here's the proof'. I think you'd agree it's not rigorous enough just to keep shifting the achievement-realised markers out every year, or never quite defining them.

 

[Scotty]

The world isn't so black and white. I've both critisised and defended Deans depending on his actions.

At the moment the School 1 guys are acting a little extreme, while the School 2 guys are more moderate.