LOCKED: Time to Sack Deans?

[Gagger]

Another visionary, with specs.

 

[DPK]

Folks - we are getting too carried away with facts. Facts are inconvenient. What I like is the vibe; the vibe of this Wallabies team based on the extended experience of watching one 3N game. I love the vibe,
.

Lee Grant = Dennis Denuto?

 

[Reddy!]

Haha good one DPK

 

[Reddy!]

I thought Horne was pretty good tonight, especially in defence, but a fit Digby has to be in there somewhere. Preferably on the wing for mine. If they are going to run back everything then AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) should stay at FB, so maybe Schmoo moves to the bench.

I actually think Digby is a pretty good distributor (better than Horne) and an unselfish player. But as some one else said - lets see this backline settle and Horne should definitely keep his spot. The only change I would make is bringing a fit Digby back onto the wing for O'Connor

 

[chief]

Digby out for the rest of the year. Screwed his shoulder yesterday

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I give Deans credit mainly for blooding a lot of these youngsters and having the vision to see some of these combinations come to fruition. I wasn't a big rap for Quade in the last couple of years, but since elevated to the Wallaby run-on team, he's found a new gear. He's taken a punt on a few young blokes and we might just be seeing the results of that. He's also had the courage to stick with them too.

I'm not getting too excited yet, but the signs are looking a little better.

 

[Ruggo]

I kind of feel for Robbie. Things starting to clikck and now he has to replace his playmaker for the two biggest tests of the year.

 

[I like to watch]

I give Deans credit mainly for blooding a lot of these youngsters and having the vision to see some of these combinations come to fruition. I wasn't a big rap for Quade in the last couple of years, but since elevated to the Wallaby run-on team, he's found a new gear. .

I think Qwade's newly found form has more to so with his "wake up call" earlier this year. The talk is there is a lot less partying & more focus on the job at hand, since the "misunderstanding".
More work,less piss= much improved form.
Good to see talent not going to waste.Shame he is unavailable for next the 2 AB games

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I think Qwade's newly found form has more to so with his "wake up call" earlier this year. The talk is there is a lot less partying & more focus on the job at hand, since the "misunderstanding".
More work,less piss= much improved form.
Good to see talent not going to waste.Shame he is unavailable for next the 2 AB games

That is undoubtedly part of it, I agree. But I think the vote of confidence given to him by the coaching staff has helped. That kind of thing really lifts a young player.

 

[Richo]

Shades of a young Punter Ponting, I reckon. It wasn't until after the shennagins at the Bourbon & Beefsteak that Ricky pulled his talent together.

 

[RedsHappy]

I think Qwade's newly found form has more to so with his "wake up call" earlier this year. The talk is there is a lot less partying & more focus on the job at hand, since the "misunderstanding" More work,less piss= much improved form...Good to see talent not going to waste.Shame he is unavailable for next the 2 AB games

I had a good chat with QC (Quade Cooper) in a semi-social context a few weeks back and just a btw, he was very complimentary and positive about Link's role in supporting him, encouraging and coaching him. (That is not meant to infer he was not positive about others around his career, he just singled out Link to me.)

 

[Gnostic]

I knew that the Visionaries would be using the win as PROOF positive that all is great with the Wallabies. ie Gagger "case closed".

This was the easiest of the 3N games the Wallabies are going to get. The win was good and showed a marked improvement in the play of certain players which had been seriously criticised by me and others. Those criticisms stand and will be resurrected next week if last nights efforts are not replicated. If this is the one game where the Wallabies play with application, passion and desire then I will be indeed re-stating my issues with Deans et al. This is the key, they need to replicate this commitment, the result IMO is not as important to me as the method of play.

However one of the bright points for me, which has been replicated in every test this year, largely missed by most commentators is the total absence of a successful driving maul against the Wallabies (excepting the one from the 5 metre lineout where Matfield moved it from the top). This has been largely due to the efforts of Sharpe and Mumm driving though at the time of formation and attacking the ball carrier and subsequent receivers. Excellent work.

 

[the gambler]

Good point Gnostic. Mumm is excellent at spoiling opposition mauls and it really annoys me when a defending player is told to get out of a maul for being offside despite having been involved and bound from the outset.

 

[naza]

I knew that the Visionaries would be using the win as PROOF positive that all is great with the Wallabies. ie Gagger "case closed".

This was the easiest of the 3N games the Wallabies are going to get. The win was good and showed a marked improvement in the play of certain players which had been seriously criticised by me and others. Those criticisms stand and will be resurrected next week if last nights efforts are not replicated. If this is the one game where the Wallabies play with application, passion and desire then I will be indeed re-stating my issues with Deans et al. This is the key, they need to replicate this commitment, the result IMO is not as important to me as the method of play.

Great post. We need a 'disagree/uppercut' button for the premature celebrators.

This game was the biggest gimme of the century. The boys don't get much of a pat on the back for putting that one away. Especially since we know they often fail to go on with it. The away games are the true test of their mettle.

 

[Richo]

The boys don't get much of a pat on the back for putting that one away.

Over-confidence is obviously a bad thing, but not recognising progress is as bad as not recognising continued failure.

 

[RedsHappy]

I knew that the Visionaries would be using the win as PROOF positive that all is great with the Wallabies. ie Gagger "case closed". This was the easiest of the 3N games the Wallabies are going to get. The win was good and showed a marked improvement in the play of certain players which had been seriously criticised by me and others. Those criticisms stand and will be resurrected next week if last nights efforts are not replicated. If this is the one game where the Wallabies play with application, passion and desire then I will be indeed re-stating my issues with Deans et al. This is the key, they need to replicate this commitment, the result IMO is not as important to me as the method of play.

(I still prefer Radicals, Fanboys and Gonads for these purposes...I will keep trying...I was hoping Scarf, ever the good wit, would intrude and issue the definitive nomenclature to offset Gagger's desire to besmirch the poor Radicals with late night text editing, 'fixes', flattering language for his faction, and so on. But we Radicals all quietly took that as a compliment. Oh, and I also cannot help noting that there's some new Gonads emerging).

There have been some good posts on last night's game, so I'll just try and add my own pieces:

Commentators of understandably patriotic bent often celebrate the victor's win in a manner that under-analyses the loser's contribution to it, or facilitation of it. Then positive predictions are made for the next triumph, without sufficient crediting of what might or will occur when the loser's contribution is either reversed, or heavily modified by the same team, or another one. The infusions of optimism post Perth v England, and then the shock of Sydney, is a good example, as England rapidly learnt and awoke.

SA were appalling last night, truly appalling. Scarf is quite right on this. Australia only matched SA on try count, the difference in score line were the penalties and constant ill-discipline gifted endlessly by SA. Two yellow cards same team (quite rare in Tests), terrible back line attack and cohesion from SA, Habana and Smit in truly shocking from, forwards lacking characteristic intensity and fight-back, this SA looks like a team in self-deconstruct mode, losing even basic basic motivation for long periods. Something has gone badly wrong inside this team and its management. The majority of us I think voted only weeks back that SA would surely win the Tris. The decline since has been staggering, but we're certainly benefitting, let's not kid ourselves as to the degree to which SA's troubles contributed to this win.

Yes, great to have the win, the Wallabies were up on Sydney and Brisbane-Ireland, no doubt. I agree that the intensity of the forwards in general, much improved breakdown work, Elsom's 'revival',, Pocock's now world-class talent and consistency, a seemingly revitalised Giteau (but we have seen this before), Genia way up on Sydney, were all positive factors. Critically, as others have commented, the aspect I liked most was that the team itself generally seemed to be far more committed and psychologically 'up' for longer. But this this shouldn't be over-praised, it's what you rightly want a top team to be (and one whose cost is $30m pa), it should be expected as just a baseline for 80+% of all games; we are all so pleased as its absence has been far more the norm than its presence.

But there were serious deficiencies that an SA (or a Bulls or Stormers) in a better head space would have made costly. Our back line - after 5 Tests this season - has only ever been really 'electric' for good periods in Perth. Last night, there were lots of poor passes, non cohesive combinations, as fp says so well, 'one out' plays reaching ahead of support, handling errors, and attacking patterns that seemed more 'on the spot, let's try this' than really deeply rehearsed and consistent. After 5 2010 Tests our back line play should be far better than this, it really is not improving much. And, just as worrying, we started to leak tries to the opposition in the latter part of the game, the old black Wallabies dog was back on the park.

My achievement marker for RD to (just) be given the benefit of the doubt was at least 3 good wins this Tris. But a proper expectation should be a Tri-Nations won. If we win next week, enthusiasm will be more rationally based, a positive trend line might be starting. (I hate to recall it, but let's remember Brisbane last year after the victory - 'these new Wallabies under Deans are going somewhere special'...well, on we went to Wellington, Tokyo....)

 

[cyclopath]

All debate on nomenclature aside, I must say I fail to see the posts where Fanboys or Visionaries (or whatever the fuck you want to call them) are making bold predictions about anything apart from a good beginning. I am cautiously optimistic as I think there were some real positives to take out of that. We should applaud the gains seen, as much as we should criticise the shit dealt out a month ago. Gagger is just tugging your chain, RH.
Attitude and aggression at the breakdown for starters, lack of which has been a cancer in Aus rugby. Now it needs to become the norm.
Good spoiling of mauls (apart from that one off the lineout which was a piece of brilliance from the Bokke).
Forwards making good metres - Sharpe, Rocky (wide) and Mumm in particular. A player like Ma'afu turning a corner.
Good defence for the most part - I would disagree we "leaked" tries. One was almost unstoppable, and another was from a sequence of good play from the Bokke.
We butchered a few tries, and the result may have been a bigger win to the Wallabies. I don't think the Bokke really missed other opportunities.
This was the number 2 ranked side in the world - their bad game is still several levels above that of a 4th -8th ranked team, and we won pretty comfortably.

 

[Gnostic]

To a certain degree the players can only play what is in front of them. Looking at SA this week compared to the previous two weeks they did not contest the breakdowns at all. They fanned out from the tackle. Hence the much tighter defence from set plays and recycle ball. Another change I noted was their kick chase much in a much better line. There were few mid field holes this week. Maybe Olivier and Fourie are getting their combination together.

The clean breaks apart from Giteau's very good attack at the 10/12 channel was all on the wings, think Horne, Mitchell and Elsom which the Boks scammbled to cover with much more urgency than last week.

Overall I was quite impressed with the application of the team as a whole in this game, this showed a much better application than what we saw against England. But as I have already stated I reserve my final judgement for the follow-up games. We have seen false dawns before such as last year's Brisveagas test, so I am far from convinced. This was a step in the right direction, now for the next step. Like I said before IMO the result of the games is not as important as the way they play, so even if they lose to the ABs next week as long as they apply themselves to at least this level next week I will be happy. If not then we will be revisiting this thread to see what comments have been born out by performances.

 

[I like to watch]

Jeez, some of you guys are hard markers. We won last night and won it comfortably.Yes the Boks played shite, but sometimes you can only play as well as you are allowed.
Yes next week will be totally different, no way will they not contest the breakdowns like the Boks most of last night.
My benchmark is not really how many we win, it's more to do with how we play.
Lets not forget the AB's are the best team in the world atm, if they beat us in a thriller and I walk away saying guys played well and got beaten by a better side on the night then that for me is OK

 

[Langthorne]

It is Apostates Vs Faithful Vs Agnostics - come on guys, we all know rugby is a religion.