Reds 2017

[Sauron]

Here's an article by Zavos from when the Fowler business was going down:

http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/04/30/queensland-reds-are-fracturing-over-personal-agendas/

Makes for very interesting reading in hindsight.

Elsewhere, we wonder why there's a dearth of coaching options in Australian rugby- it seems that once again it's a problem with the admin.

How many of the 2011 team are still coaching in this country? What I would give to get a few of them back.

 

[dru]

Might have something to o with our bench being poorer than the oppositions' ???????

Seems hard to accept, but I guess I've largely been looking at our bench front row which has been excellent.

 

[gel]

Geebus, based on the almost zero evidence I have, I think the QRU need to give this guy an apology and a new job.

It sounds a bit blown out of proportion surely.

 

[dru]

I think it was more that Quade was the best implementer of a game plan he'd coached. Link along with Tatsy Taylor, Jim McKay and, dare I say, Chook Fowler, worked relentlessly on coming up with the right game plans for each side.

And we have some suggesting Quade would have "culture" problems at the Reds. Sheesh.

Sounds like we need to re-build Taylor-McKay-Fowler quality tactical support along with whatever is done with HC.

 

[The torpedo]

Just thought about this - if we don't get Quade, why not chase after Sam Lane again?
He did pretty good (albeit in his 1 and a bit) in the matches he played in

 

[RedsHappy]

To be fair to the guy, he is Co head coach, attack coach and defence coach - so pretty big ask to do it all.

Why didn't the QRU parachute in someone from club land for a season? Definitely less than ideal, but weakening the whole thing by making one guy do everything except scrums and lineout seems a bit retarded.

The whole coaching set-up is retarded - 'co-interim head coaches' - FFS. This was doomed to disaster from the word go.

What: 13 Reds games under this model and a 23% w-l ratio including consistently appalling skills levels, unfixed kicking woes, poor attack patterns, uneven fitness, regular team mental lapses, etc, etc?

The QRU obviously think paying Reds fans are merely there to observe the QRU's social engineering experiments and bizarre self-preserving organisational concoctions.

The whole of 2014-16, paying Reds fans have just been casually insulted under a barrage of disingenuous PR guff and clearly incompetent on-field and off-field leadership. A grave, and total, institutional failure is what it is.

Now they get what they deserve - there must have been no more than 7,000 fans at the last game and that's a let's-go-bankrupt-all-over-again number in trend terms. A claim of 14,000+, well, as J Tucker said or inferred in the C-M, that's just a knowing corporate lie. But nonetheless it goes right to the heart of what's toxic in the QRU's bloodstream that it would evade the truth in this way. Fessing up to how bad things have become is the beginning of genuine reform; avoiding the truth is merely a harbinger of worse to come.

The whole Reds coaching and 'rugby department' set-up is more than absurd and look at the results. Look at the barely described contempt for it all from L Gill in his quoted comments after the defensive debacle vs the Rebels, and in Gill's last game.

Shameful is the word.

And how anyone can be even vaguely tolerant of or comforted by the notion that either Stiles or O'Connor could be appointed Reds HC is just totally beyond comprehension based upon what we have seen of the Reds under their 'co-interim' stewardship.

 

[Simon.]

Here's an article by Zavos from when the Fowler business was going down:

http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/04/30/queensland-reds-are-fracturing-over-personal-agendas/

Makes for very interesting reading in hindsight.

Elsewhere, we wonder why there's a dearth of coaching options in Australian rugby- it seems that once again it's a problem with the admin.

How many of the 2011 team are still coaching in this country? What I would give to get a few of them back.

That's a nicely prescient article, in hindsight. Concludes with:

How can it be good for the Reds team that he is replaced as coach by someone who has no record of success at the Super Rugby level?

There is a strong case in all of this for asserting that personal agendas are fracturing the Reds franchise at a time when it was poised to establish a Super Rugby dynasty.

And the stuff about the Force players effectively sacking Graham, which was followed by the Reds players voting with their feet and leading a stampede out of Ballymore.

 

[kiap]

Here's an article by Zavos from when the Fowler business was going down:

http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/04/30/queensland-reds-are-fracturing-over-personal-agendas/

Makes for very interesting reading in hindsight.

Yeah, this bit:

I know Phillip Fowler. I taught him decades ago at secondary school in New Zealand. He was a lively and intelligent student (in my history and English classes) and a brilliant member of the First XV and First XI. I once absent-mindedly put a $20 note, as a marker, in a history book which I wanted him to read as preparation for an exam. He returned the $20, and mastered the content of the book.​

​

In all my dealings with him, as a student and subsequently as a rugby guru with the Wallabies, the Waratahs and the Reds, I would vouch for his absolute integrity, honesty, intelligence and loyalty to his team and its players.​

​

The back story relating to his dismissal involves more than a dispute over a player review.​

​

The way the matter has been handled, with Fowler being punished with the loss of his livelihood, does not reflect well on a player in the Reds squad, coach McKenzie or for that matter CEO Carmichael.​

​

Anyway, some people on this forum did a tap of nose, hush hush. So Spiro isn't the only one. Say no more.

 

[Simon.]

What: 13 Reds games under this model and a 23% w-l ratio including consistently appalling skills levels, unfixed kicking woes, poor attack patterns, uneven fitness, regular team mental lapses, etc, etc?

...

Now they get what they deserve - there must have been no more than 7,000 fans at the last game and that's a let's-go-bankrupt-all-over-again number in trend terms. A claim of 14,000+, well, as J Tucker said or inferred in the C-M, that's just a knowing corporate lie. But nonetheless it goes right to the heart of what's toxic in the QRU's bloodstream that it would evade the truth in this way. Fessing up to how bad things have become is the beginning of genuine reform; avoiding the truth is merely a harbinger of worse to come.

23% is an even worse win-loss record than we had under Graham. Now THAT is something to be worried about.

I don't know where these crowd figures are coming from but I'm getting pretty pissed off that whenever I've been to a game this season all the best seats on the centre line have been greyed out as unavailable on Ticketek, even months in advance.

And then you get to the game and those sections are not even 10% full. And the security guards are keeping an eagle eye out to chuck out anybody who tries to come into that section with a ticket that doesn't have that section number on it.

I was at the Rebels game last Friday and the same thing happened again. Best seats I could get were on the 22 line, got there and there were about 30 people in the Ruby membership seats on halfway. So naturally we got a bit lost on the way to our seats and ended up there.

Anyway, I don't know why those seats are always listed as unavailable but maybe the Reds are counting them as occupied for the crowd figures!

 

[kiap]

Anyway, I don't know why those seats are always listed as unavailable but maybe the Reds are counting them as occupied for the crowd figures!

Were there seat reservations kept by QRU after the team left Ballymore? (i.e. long-term members, paid-up patrons, blah, blah, blah)

 

[RedsHappy]

That's a nicely prescient article, in hindsight. Concludes with:

How can it be good for the Reds team that he is replaced as coach by someone who has no record of success at the Super Rugby level?

There is a strong case in all of this for asserting that personal agendas are fracturing the Reds franchise at a time when it was poised to establish a Super Rugby dynasty.

And the stuff about the Force players effectively sacking Graham, which was followed by the Reds players voting with their feet and leading a stampede out of Ballymore.

Yes, Simon, thanks for that post - there was a lot right in that 2012 article.

Just a reminder though as we look back to the Reds World of 2012: it was clear even then that the 2011 victory had already induced the drug of unearned hubris and a tendency to arrogance within the Ballymore corridors.

Who needs to care re a Fowler leaving and Tatsy Taylor going away too! We are the power triangle that's done all this of Link, MacCall, Carmichael! We will remake the totally unproven coach Graham into a fine HC under our wing and the outstanding QRU/Reds culture! That lost son and mate of QLD rugby will return and be re-embraced.

Remember the Reds PR banner-ware of 2012:

'When greatness calls, we will respond'.

Greatness calling? One Super title, and 'greatness' was already calling.

I can honestly say at the time I sensed this type of headline was ominous, on the downside.

 

[Simon.]

Were there seat reservations kept by QRU after the team left Ballymore? (i.e. long-term members, paid-up patrons, blah, blah, blah)

Well the interesting thing is, in 2013/14 I didn't have this problem, and that's when the Reds were getting over 20,000 (genuine) fans per game. I was able to get seats on halfway even booking the morning of a game.

I've confirmed this with my old ticket receipts in my e-mail to make sure my memory wasn't playing tricks. Something seems to have changed with the way they release seats at Suncorp.

I still generally end up in the same seats anyway, as my navigation skills at finding my assigned seat are truly terrible.

 

[Simon.]

(I should point out that I am not robbing the Reds - I still PAY for the same grade of seat. I just refuse to sit on the 22 if there are 90% empty seats on halfway)

 

[kiap]

Don't tell me it's the old Clive Palmer trick from Goldy United … closing down seating bays so as not to pay for caterers and cleaners.

 

[Forcefield]

Does anyone know (or could take a guess) at who this player was?

If I was a betting man, I'd guess Genia. He almost left for the Force during 2012 and then something changed. He has at times (blow up at Kafe?) shown that he can be very prickly. He is also one of only a few players at the Reds that was irreplaceable (along with Quade, Ioane and Horwill). I am not sure any other single player would have the capital to see a coach axed.

 

[dru]

If I was a betting man, I'd guess Genia. He almost left for the Force during 2012 and then something changed. He has at times (blow up at Kafe?) shown that he can be very prickly. He is also one of only a few players at the Reds that was irreplaceable (along with Quade, Ioane and Horwill). I am not sure any other single player would have the capital to see a coach axed.

Is this healthy speculation?

 

[No4918]

Is this healthy speculation?

Just character assassination based on nothing but an extremely tenuous link to an unrelated event as supposed evidence of a major character flaw.

 

[Scoey]

Not really that tenuous. Chook left/got sacked just prior to the Reds vs Blues match in Auckland in 2012 according to one of the articles I shared. Genia allegedly signs a deal with the Force in the same week but then inexplicably changes his mind at the last second. What changed his mind he never really discussed, only saying it wasn't money as far as I can recall. The pieces seem to fit.

 

[Forcefield]

Just character assassination based on nothing but an extremely tenuous link to an unrelated event as supposed evidence of a major character flaw.

Mayhap. But aside from calling him prickly, which I think is a fair call, how have I assassinated his character? I made no value judgment on the conflict between coach and player. People are allowed to disagree on issues and I'm sure we've all worked with someone we can't stand and relate to professional disagreements. I don't consider that a character flaw.

As Scoey said, not entirely tenuous.

 

[Hawko]

Competent 5/8 Trump's all else?

Except for competent THP and competent reserve THP.