Brumby Runner
Jason Little (69)
Will Friend be a contender for the 2020 Olympics. If not, then time to move on and bring in someone like the current Fiji coach for the next four years.
Rugby 7s general chat
- Thread starter Hugh Jarse
- Start date
kiap
Steve Williams (59)
True, but the shine dropped out after the first three months.
Wasn't Friend the coach-of-last-resort after the Welsh fella buggered off? IIRC we were scratching to find a coach to get us through to the Olympics. Maybe Andy needs to grow into the role, he still looks to be playing too much 15s rugby tactics to me. Surely the success of the women's team's a template for Oz 7s rugby style and tactics.
Strewthcobber
Simon Poidevin (60)
Haven't USA basically tried the "get good athletes into a sevens side" model?
It been a fairly disastrous tournament for them.
It been a fairly disastrous tournament for them.
We've all seen how long it took Carlin Isles to become a decent player.
It shows you that it can be done but if someone doesn't have a rugby background they probably need to be part of the squad for most of that four year cycle leading up to the Olympics to have a chance of being up to speed.
Strewthcobber
Simon Poidevin (60)
I suppose my question is (and I don't follow 7s nealry enough to know the answer) was there anyone in the top 2/4/8 sides that didn't have extensive Sevens experience, and was there anyone from a non-rugby background?
These tactics worked in the women's comp, but is that only because of how "immature" the teams are at being fully Pro?
Not to my knowledge but I guess the point of reference for us is that Pama Fou would have been in our best 12 if not injured and he didn't come from a rugby background.
I'm not saying that our team should be based around recruiting from non-rugby backgrounds but there is the potential there to have a few people in the squad (of what must be 20-25 people) who are longer term projects with an elite athletic background and/or certain physical characteristics.
Rugby 7s has the advantage now that they're an Olympic sport that a person can be a salaried professional in which would be pretty attractive to people who have a strong desire to go to the Olympics.
K
KAOPointman
Guest
Interesting stat they mentioned about the Aus women's team was that bar 2 of the girls......the rest of the squad didn't even play rugby 3 years ago. And now world champions and a Gold medal. Coaching is MASSIVE!
And after Stannards display vs the Argies today.....maybe he should carry the coaches bags out the door! Terrible game management.....running the play into the touch line, knocking on, missing tackles and giving up on the chase! And from our play maker!
Faalavalau looked far better in the short time the coach gave him at the start.
And after Stannards display vs the Argies today.....maybe he should carry the coaches bags out the door! Terrible game management.....running the play into the touch line, knocking on, missing tackles and giving up on the chase! And from our play maker!
Faalavalau looked far better in the short time the coach gave him at the start.
perhaps we need a thread on Men's 7s 2017 but if we are talking players, I wonder if they've looked at Mitch Felsman? This guy is lighting quick and is super talented, has come off two ripper Club seasons up here.
Not sure why he doesn't have an NRC contract, but if we are looking for speed then this man would be a bloody good option.
Not sure why he doesn't have an NRC contract, but if we are looking for speed then this man would be a bloody good option.
Dismal Pillock
Michael Lynagh (62)
Curious what Aus side would look like if they sent the best of the best?
1 Michael Hooper
2 K.Beale
3 To'omua
4 Folau
5 Joe Tomane
6 Liam Gill
7 KHunt
8 Kuridrani
9 Henry Speight
1 Michael Hooper
2 K.Beale
3 To'omua
4 Folau
5 Joe Tomane
6 Liam Gill
7 KHunt
8 Kuridrani
9 Henry Speight
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
There can be no doubt that one of the most crucial elements behind the women's team's massive success was the 'revolutionary' (for our ARU that is) idea to reach out to _all_ the rich veins of athletic talent that our country clearly produces. No matter the school, the social group, the originating sport, the location. This meant that we broadened the skills pipeline hugely and we extended our reach for innate talent and good attitude way beyond the hallowed gates of GPS and other private schools.
How extraordinary, what a brainwave!
Touch footy is massive here in QLD but many of us know little about it. When my son was 14-16 he used to play touch here in Brisbane as well as rugby and I would take him to Friday night games and, I swear, there were no less than 10 fields occupied at any one time with touch teams playing and some of skills I saw there were routinely exceptional. And many were so obviously relevant to 7s (well, and 15s almost as much).
Young AFL players could be another excellent hunting ground. Plus we need at least 30+% of our elite 7s players with serious acceleration and gas over 50m or so. Our current men's 7s team clearly lacks adequate raw speed, let alone much else.
This openness to a wide base of talent is what we must do if the men's 7s team is to be totally rebuilt from the ground up which it clearly needs to be.
Tinkering with what we have now - a group of perennial scrapers as Barbarian aptly describes them - will not yield success. We need a new bevy of Caslick-like, Green-like, Tonegato-like, Cherry-like men who bring the requisite base skills of agility, speed, stepping and innate athletic strength.
If it takes two years to find and start building such a group, it will pay major dividends when it matters.....and we are at such a shamefully low base now in men's 7s, things could hardly get worse than to come 8th in the first rugby Olympics that the ARU has allegedly been preparing for over 4 years.
It's so illuminating that the one and only time the ARU has truly broken out of the relatively insular and habitual confines of the typical sources of Australian rugby players, and thought innovatively and imaginatively, it ends up producing a real gem of an outcome that has rightly made us all proud and will do wonders for women's rugby here and globally.
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
L - rugby coaches that achieve precisely fuck-all after a year or more, and if anything additionally yield up deterioration, rarely, very rarely, go on to deliver sustained improvements and performance breakthroughs.
Friend has zero track record of demonstrable success in his whole rugby coaching career.
Further, 7s is a very, very different game to 15s. The coaching and selection requirements are quite different.
What I do guarantee you though is that, in St Leonards, Friend will be widely seen as a 'really good bloke and a good rugby man'.
IMO, we should be immediately trying to poach Ryan from Fiji - his tremendous achievement there in a general sense is akin to those attained by Walsh (and btw if we look closely we can see there are many similarities in the 7s playing tactics and game plans they both used to win Gold).
I agree it helps with having a rugby background but the team needs youth and speed, flyers not just players from rugby who want to have a crack for something different and who aren't suited to the fast aerobic level of 7s. Its the main problem with the team now, most are pedestrians and not suited.
wamberal
Phil Kearns (64)
Are they all proven Sevens players?
Strewthcobber
Simon Poidevin (60)
RH the Aussie touch Champs are crawling with NRL scouts, and its the perfect example of why the Men's coach has it much more difficult than the Women's.
Tim Walsh can offer a contract to a promising young touch player that's the most money she will make playing sport. Friend can only a relative pittance (even though it might be the same amount!)
Shannon Walker quit because he couldn't afford to fly to see his family between tournaments!
Desite this, have a look back through the ARU's press releases to see how many non-rugby guys have had a crack. Barba, Winterstein, Parahi, Fou etc
The chance to be one of the few that make the Olympics will be a draw, but we're not going to get 3/4 years of commitment out of the top male athletes to make it happen. They juat have too many other options
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
Totally agree as per above post, but much harder if as announced the ARU has already re-appointed the hapless Friend for 2 more years FFS.
I like to watch
David Codey (61)
Grow into the role??????
He's the wrong side of 50!
Let's review our results.
We beat Spain, and we're flattered when South Africa effectively forfeited the pool game against us by playing their bench all game.
And we lost every other game.
We had one injury.
Time to blow up the whole joint and start again.
Dismal Pillock
Michael Lynagh (62)
What is this, the fuckin border crossing? Not sure if their paperwork is in order Sir but I'd still like to see someone try staying in front of Milner Skudder or DMckenzie with only 7 people stretched across the width of the field!
I don't think a like for like approach with the women's team will work though.
There is no doubt that the men's game has a far higher baseline because there are a lot more people to choose from who have played for many years who have a decent skill level and athletic prowess.
It's unlikely that we are going to attract players from an AFL background with any degree of regularity. The average AFL salary is now north of 300k and rookies are on a base of 75k which can rise to 165k if they play all the games. For someone to switch to rugby 7s it would be because they want to go to the Olympics above all else.
Pama Fou is a good case study for the type of athlete 7s could attract. He was a volleyball player who realistically plays for a weak volleyball nation (but in an Olympic sport) in a sport where there isn't the potential to be a full time professional in Australia.
A player in this sort of sport that has the right attributes and is driven by a goal of wanting to go to the Olympics first and foremost is highly likely to be enticed by a full time salary to play 7s (even if it isn't a massive salary in the scheme of things).
I'm not sure touch football would be the go to place for recruitment for the men's team. Without a rugby background the players would really need to be elite athletes to be worth trying to transition. It is highly likely that a lot of the younger people here would have played rugby or league to some level at least as a kid so wouldn't be coming from no base.