Gnostic
Mark Ella (57)
Well this is a subject that has been the ongoing nightmare of Waratahs fans for 15 Professional years. So here are my prognostications on the matter.
The Waratahs’ heyday was in 1991 a tour match against the visiting Welsh side. The side packed full of Wallabies and coached by a master of the art in Rod Macqueen. A 61 point flogging was handed out to an international side. From then on when have stumbled from season to season, with failure after failure. Each season dawns bright with promise and we build into the season with trials and a good start. Then comes the reality check with a flogging at the hands of a consistent side like the Crusaders or Bulls and a slow rebuilding of the confidence (of the fans) with some narrow wins and maybe a run-away score line against an easy beat. They will make the semis in Super Rugby to get trounced in a humiliation that leaves one thinking if they even deserved to be in the finals series it was so one-sided.
That pretty much sums up the 15 years of Super Rugby for the Waratahs. The faces of the players have changed over time, coaches have come and gone but the consistent underperformance has remained.
I have racked my brain to identify why this is the case. Are the players alone at fault? Is it the Coaches that are to blame? What about the much discussed NSWRU board and their well-known continual in-fighting and political manoeuvring?
Well I have to say in my opinion it is all of the above. The Waratahs have a very long history, as all know, and a snap shot of the culture that pervades the organisation was seen recently when the revered Waratah Matthew Burke lashed out at fans for booing the team from the field after the Cheetahs capitulation. When Burke said and I’ll paraphrase it, “You cannot know what goes on unless you have played Super Rugby” he displayed the arrogance of the organisation that holds itself aloof from its supporter base. It is a culture that is so self absorbed from the board down that they have no idea that they have been losing the interest and support of Rugby followers for years. Not just to rival Rugby teams but from the code as a whole.
Every year the Tahs will have a self assessment and review process and will vow to perform better but we see year after year the same application, skill execution and inexplicable losses and in those losses the very areas they vowed to improve upon will be evident again.
This year we will see the end of another coach and some high profile players. We will enter another “rebuilding phase” in which poor results are expected to be condoned. I have no doubt that we will see the basis of yet another period in the on-going tragedy of the Tahs, the continued under performance of perhaps the best endowed province in Australia, unless we change the whole structure and culture of the Organisation from the top down.
The focus of these changes has to be on achieving an accurate and dynamic mode of play and a total removal of the arrogance and air of entitlement that surrounds the team. Do not get this dynamic mode of play confused with a free running wide game. A conservative narrow game plan can be dynamic. Forget win:loss ratios. All those players and coaches have to want to be there and not just for the pay packet. KPIs are a great tool but they are over used and can be detrimental to performance if not structured and monitored correctly. A great example is the KPI of "workrate" which doesn’t take into account effectiveness. A coach that has a KPI of win:loss and point differential will be playing tight and trying to minimise losses and score lines as opposed to aiming at winning every game and playing a dynamic game (be it a territorial game plan, a narrow driving game plan or fast flowing backs running plan).
My point is examine the available coaching stocks, advertise for a skilled manager and knowledgeable Rugby mind as head coach with the only KPIs being on fitness, skills execution and application in games. Basic measureables that will not be skewed by external factors in the most part. Results will manage themselves if these core things are done well and even if they lose while playing well the majority of fans will be content. No further input can be given by the board unless the KPIs are not met, or the contract breached in some material detail such as behavioural issues.
The Head coach can then choose assistants with winning and player improvement in mind instead of just saving his arse and pandering to the usual power plays in NSW Rugby balancing various factions and appeasing board members.
Spiro Zavos recently published an article that supports many of my points. He stated that the Waratahs are “not a Coachable side” and stated that the efforts of coaches like Ewen Mackenzie and Bob Dwyer failed to alter this. Further he stated that there is a culture of “entitlement” at the Waratahs that sees senior players rarely dropped regardless of form and that he doubts that Hickey or Foley have the “nous” to change this. Whilst I agree with his assertion of the entitlement culture, I would dispute the contention that the coaches named don’t have the “nous” to combat the negative aspects of the culture. What I will say is they do not have the support of the board or the carte blanche required to make the changes necessary. What do you think would happen if the coach dropped 75% of the starting team after the debacles we have seen this year? Every player who walked back into position at a ruck or on attack should be dropped and that would be about 75% of the starters including many starting Wallabies.
If we continue to condone the arrogant, lazy entitled culture of the Waratahs we had better accept the mediocrity of performance we have grown used to these past 15 years because no matter who is the next coach the results will be the same.
The Waratahs’ heyday was in 1991 a tour match against the visiting Welsh side. The side packed full of Wallabies and coached by a master of the art in Rod Macqueen. A 61 point flogging was handed out to an international side. From then on when have stumbled from season to season, with failure after failure. Each season dawns bright with promise and we build into the season with trials and a good start. Then comes the reality check with a flogging at the hands of a consistent side like the Crusaders or Bulls and a slow rebuilding of the confidence (of the fans) with some narrow wins and maybe a run-away score line against an easy beat. They will make the semis in Super Rugby to get trounced in a humiliation that leaves one thinking if they even deserved to be in the finals series it was so one-sided.
That pretty much sums up the 15 years of Super Rugby for the Waratahs. The faces of the players have changed over time, coaches have come and gone but the consistent underperformance has remained.
I have racked my brain to identify why this is the case. Are the players alone at fault? Is it the Coaches that are to blame? What about the much discussed NSWRU board and their well-known continual in-fighting and political manoeuvring?
Well I have to say in my opinion it is all of the above. The Waratahs have a very long history, as all know, and a snap shot of the culture that pervades the organisation was seen recently when the revered Waratah Matthew Burke lashed out at fans for booing the team from the field after the Cheetahs capitulation. When Burke said and I’ll paraphrase it, “You cannot know what goes on unless you have played Super Rugby” he displayed the arrogance of the organisation that holds itself aloof from its supporter base. It is a culture that is so self absorbed from the board down that they have no idea that they have been losing the interest and support of Rugby followers for years. Not just to rival Rugby teams but from the code as a whole.
Every year the Tahs will have a self assessment and review process and will vow to perform better but we see year after year the same application, skill execution and inexplicable losses and in those losses the very areas they vowed to improve upon will be evident again.
This year we will see the end of another coach and some high profile players. We will enter another “rebuilding phase” in which poor results are expected to be condoned. I have no doubt that we will see the basis of yet another period in the on-going tragedy of the Tahs, the continued under performance of perhaps the best endowed province in Australia, unless we change the whole structure and culture of the Organisation from the top down.
The focus of these changes has to be on achieving an accurate and dynamic mode of play and a total removal of the arrogance and air of entitlement that surrounds the team. Do not get this dynamic mode of play confused with a free running wide game. A conservative narrow game plan can be dynamic. Forget win:loss ratios. All those players and coaches have to want to be there and not just for the pay packet. KPIs are a great tool but they are over used and can be detrimental to performance if not structured and monitored correctly. A great example is the KPI of "workrate" which doesn’t take into account effectiveness. A coach that has a KPI of win:loss and point differential will be playing tight and trying to minimise losses and score lines as opposed to aiming at winning every game and playing a dynamic game (be it a territorial game plan, a narrow driving game plan or fast flowing backs running plan).
My point is examine the available coaching stocks, advertise for a skilled manager and knowledgeable Rugby mind as head coach with the only KPIs being on fitness, skills execution and application in games. Basic measureables that will not be skewed by external factors in the most part. Results will manage themselves if these core things are done well and even if they lose while playing well the majority of fans will be content. No further input can be given by the board unless the KPIs are not met, or the contract breached in some material detail such as behavioural issues.
The Head coach can then choose assistants with winning and player improvement in mind instead of just saving his arse and pandering to the usual power plays in NSW Rugby balancing various factions and appeasing board members.
Spiro Zavos recently published an article that supports many of my points. He stated that the Waratahs are “not a Coachable side” and stated that the efforts of coaches like Ewen Mackenzie and Bob Dwyer failed to alter this. Further he stated that there is a culture of “entitlement” at the Waratahs that sees senior players rarely dropped regardless of form and that he doubts that Hickey or Foley have the “nous” to change this. Whilst I agree with his assertion of the entitlement culture, I would dispute the contention that the coaches named don’t have the “nous” to combat the negative aspects of the culture. What I will say is they do not have the support of the board or the carte blanche required to make the changes necessary. What do you think would happen if the coach dropped 75% of the starting team after the debacles we have seen this year? Every player who walked back into position at a ruck or on attack should be dropped and that would be about 75% of the starters including many starting Wallabies.
If we continue to condone the arrogant, lazy entitled culture of the Waratahs we had better accept the mediocrity of performance we have grown used to these past 15 years because no matter who is the next coach the results will be the same.
