Poll: Cooper at 10?

[Motorboater]

IMO Qade needs to concentrate solely on his distributing. It's something Deans needs to tinker with in the game plan. He has the best long passing game since Bernie (which he seems to have left in the kit bag this tournament) and some of the most lethal backs in world rugby outside of him. Providing them with early pill or picking the right one to hit with a long ball should be a priority.

QC (Quade Cooper) played his best rugby doing this. Defences would spread to cover a long ball, often leaving him one on one with his opposite. So many of the Reds scoring plays came either directly from him beating his man, or poking his head through and offloading.

The opposition know the Wallabies are coming through the 10/12 channel and stack their defence accordingly. There just isn't any space there, which often leads to him to panic.

 

[Scotty]

I wonder if the game plan called for him to resist the long passes due to the threat of both Bok centres in taking intercepts (not to mention Habana as well)? We may see more distribution from him this week.

Cooper's kicking style seems to have changed over the last few years. He is now kicking higher and shorter than he did before. This is no doubt the biggest area he needs to improve on if we are to win this weekend.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I wonder if the game plan called for him to resist the long passes due to the threat of both Bok centres in taking intercepts (not to mention Habana as well)? We may see more distribution from him this week.

Cooper's kicking style seems to have changed over the last few years. He is now kicking higher and shorter than he did before. This is no doubt the biggest area he needs to improve on if we are to win this weekend.

i cannot see much chance of his kicking changing in a week: the only thing you can change in a week is what happens from the neck up

 

[Scotty]

I didn't write that all that well. Don't expect his style to change in a week, but we need his accuracy to improve (along with Genia) to the levels they showed late in the S15.

 

[Waylon]

Cooper is now due for the signature performance

In the warm up and anthem, he looked like a rabbit in the head lights

It's the NZ choke gene. He got his shocker out of his sytem. His legs will work this wek against his cuzzy bros who will have sweaty palms and nervous anxiety that will see them run out of steam under the weight of expectation.

The Aussies were massive in their "ugly win"

 

[Sluggy]

I tend to agree that is unlikely to happen, but if Beale is injured I think it could force their hand. Wouldn't shifting Cooper to fullback, be less disruptive than AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) or JOC (James O'Connor) doing so? Barnes at 10, Cooper at 15 looked good against the USA - though I'm not sure if that adds any weight to my argument.

Deans tends to stick with what has already been tried, and rumour has it this is what is on the cards.

 

[Sluggy]

To me, it is too late to change the Wallaby's structure built around Cooper in the week before the RWC semi. There are just too many injuries/woundeds and there won't be a full week to get stuff sorted, so Cooper it is.

But to totally contradict that statement, if Beale can't start, I would stick Barnes at 15 and let them play tag.

And that looks to be what is unfolding.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Growden quoting Deans:

''So we're confident. He'll be fine. He will bounce back … He wouldn't have been happy with his performance, but everybody made mistakes; some of our best made mistakes. Collectively, they worked their way through it.''

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...-playmaker-to-bounce-back-20111010-1lhk6.html

Seems to mean QC (Quade Cooper) ain't going nowhere.
That's fair enough. Deans is the man and he should be judged on these sort of decisions....but his employment should have been made to depend on him getting them right.
If he's been quoted accurately he does spout a lot of jumbo jumbo: no wonder they play like headless chooks at times.


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