The ranting at Deans/ARU/O'Neill/Players thread

[Richo]

Bardon, in a career of cracking good posts, that was one of the crackingest.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Bardon, I think you've nailed it. It certainly sums up my feelings as a Wallaby fan. It's one thing to lose, but it's quite another to handicap yourself with selections and tactics before the first whistle even sounds.

I can accept that this All Black team is one of the greatest ever, but it doesn't mean I have to accept what looks us having beaten ourselves before even walking out on the paddock. By Christ our rivals the Boks wouldn't be. They (like we should be) think they can beat the AB's every time they play them. Deans looks to have given up on the idea and that shits me.

 

[disco]

It was happening well before Deans' tenure started. John Connolly, Eddie Jones et al?

Scoey,
It started with Eddie Jones yes. Connolly did pretty well to fix what Eddie had got so badly wrong in thinking the game was turning into league & set piece was just a re-start & no longer a contest.

Robbie Deans actually benefited from Connolly as you'll remember that in 2008 we actually had a very good scrum & lineout even though 2007 will always be remembered for England smashing our scrum Connolly along with Foley did turn that area around but never reaped the rewards as JON never renewed his contract even though he had a better winning percentage than Deans at the time.

 

[disco]

I love the way we shout get rid of the coach when the actuallity of it all is that no matter who is coach the result will be the same with this bunch of players. We are so far behinb the AB's in playing talent. The basic skills and abilities of this playing group is very low. They find it very hard to execute even the most basic game plan.

Wrong we're not far behind in player talent, nobody rated the Aussie players in 1997 either but that same bunch of losers just happen to be the same bunch of winners in 2001 who had conquered all.

Mckenzie did it with the deadbeat Reds in 2010 & Jake White did it with the wodden spoon favourite Brumbies of 2012. The coach does make a massive difference & hopefully we'll find out on this years NH tour.

 

[Hawko]

But how do Scotland and Samoa fit into that paradigm? Ireland in the game that shaped the RWC for Oz?

The All Blacks are better, man for man, but the wallabies appear to have fragments of a structure and the most rudimentary plan no matter who they play, and we saw it again last night.

Please clarify what fragments you saw. What was the rudimentary plan? Stand straight for the anthems?

 

[vidiot]

The structure fragments: there were 15, all about man-sized.

The rudimentary plan. Last night it was: Barnes is going to cleverly try a chip kick to exploit the rush defence (check - failed) and, when the going gets hot, shovel the ball in Beale's general direction for him to do stuff (Check. Shame he hasn't played much rugby for 3 months). Pretty impressive. We will fool the opposition by rarely getting the ball to Ioane.

 

[Hawko]

We are supposedly the number two rugby nation. So we must have some talented players.

We just played a test match where just three players - Sharpe, Ioane and Genia were roughly as good as their opposites. All the rest were soundly beaten, some embarrassingly so. I am excluding the bench because they didn't have time to show much, though I thought Moore was OK. Worse, most of the other team played, by their standards, average to poorly. How can it be that our good players all played so badly together?

If a couple of players were poor then maybe its down to the players. But when that many players play that badly without any discernible reason it has to be rested at the door of the coaching team.

The rest of the coaching team are all new. Only the head coach has been involved all along. Either the new coaching team are utterly hopeless or the head coach cannot do the job. I know which of those two alternatives is the more likely.

When to swing the axe? The RC timing is really lousy because there is only one or two weeks between games, which makes it very tough on a new coach to make the changes he needs to. I think we need to see how we go next week. If its a disaster then Deans should be marched on Saturday night. If its only a small loss then the Board should wait for the last Bledisloe before acting. The Board should be deciding now who will be offered the position. They need his in-principle decision in the bag so they can pull the pin whenever they need to. But that would require the Board not to leak. Good luck with that on past history.

 

[Joe Blow]

There is a lot of peole coming down hard on Deans, including myself. I would be very interested to hear what Bob Dwyer or Link think about this. The latter probably will not have much to say because of his own aspirations.
Maybe Rod McQueen would have a valid opinion?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Inspire.

If these guys aren't inspired just by the honour of playing for their country then they may need to be checked for a pulse.
By "inspire" do you have in mind the sort of mind numbing churchillian speeches favoured by Al Pacino? They wear very thin on the players very quickly.
Maybe we need to go back to the idea of Camp Wallaby: it seemed to work best when it was on the Sunshine coast.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It's cyclic.

I think this should be in the Wallabies positivity thread because I hope to god it is a cycle and not a permanent decline.

 

[Joe Blow]

There is a lot of peole coming down hard on Deans, including myself. I would be very interested to hear what Bob Dwyer or Link think about this. The latter probably will not have much to say because of his own aspirations.
Maybe Rod McQueen would have a valid opinion?

He (BD) feels the same way

 

[Karl]

Surely Link is the Answer.

 

[Sir Arthur Higgins]

please stop brining up the scotland loss. that was an ARU and mother nature issue, not a deans issue.
samoa - it was a trial match for fringe players predominantly. and many of those players underestimated the quality of the samoan team. i don't lay as much blame on deans for this. it was clear his tactic was for a trial match. dissapointing the players were so woeful.

deans should be judged at the end of the RC and he should be judged on his overall record, not just his bledisloe record. that said, i think he'll be gone at the end of it. but...while he doesnt have anything close to a winning record against the ABS, he has improved the winning rate over the boks, england, wales.
overall its not that bad, but at the forefront is his poor record against the ABs.

 

[Gnostic]

We are supposedly the number two rugby nation. So we must have some talented players.

We just played a test match where just three players - Sharpe, Ioane and Genia were roughly as good as their opposites. All the rest were soundly beaten, some embarrassingly so. I am excluding the bench because they didn't have time to show much, though I thought Moore was OK. Worse, most of the other team played, by their standards, average to poorly. How can it be that our good players all played so badly together?

If a couple of players were poor then maybe its down to the players. But when that many players play that badly without any discernible reason it has to be rested at the door of the coaching team.

The rest of the coaching team are all new. Only the head coach has been involved all along. Either the new coaching team are utterly hopeless or the head coach cannot do the job. I know which of those two alternatives is the more likely.

When to swing the axe? The RC timing is really lousy because there is only one or two weeks between games, which makes it very tough on a new coach to make the changes he needs to. I think we need to see how we go next week. If its a disaster then Deans should be marched on Saturday night. If its only a small loss then the Board should wait for the last Bledisloe before acting. The Board should be deciding now who will be offered the position. They need his in-principle decision in the bag so they can pull the pin whenever they need to. But that would require the Board not to leak. Good luck with that on past history.

Agree fully Hawko with most of that. However given the rubbish we have seen from Deans' coached sides over the last 5 years I assert that this squad could do no worse with a change as late as Saturday afternoon. It is impossible for them to become more unstructured in attack or worse with basic skills. Indeed a new regime mid week and mid championship will say to the players that all bets are off and you had better bloody show some guts, determination, application and skills or you too will find yourself out.

 

[Beefcake]

Playing the ABs has its advantages... grinding the axe against the best.... and disadvantages ... an axe is no match for an axe grinder.

 

[HG]

Flew down for the game and have now watched the replay.
There is on other option that for Deans to be sacked!
To go into that match with No Cooper, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) playing on the wing, Horne at 13, Mitchell on the bench with Samo. (Both have no business been in the match day 22) There was no organization in attack at all Barnes was always flat footed when he received the ball!
I won't start on the forward selections as they were as bad as his backs selections.
For a coach to get it so wrong in so many positions it is unforgivable.
The Tahs finished where on the super rugby table? What did we expect? I tipped the AB's by 20 plus and if they were not so rusty this would have been achieved.
Now does Deans admit he was wrong and select a team that has some attacking ability?
The only way the Wallabies will win against the AB's is to attack them in all aspects of the game and let them make hard decisions in defense. They need to get the AB's into 2 minds and the only person capable of organizing this in attack is Cooper. Horne has nothing! Does he bring in Tapps? He needs Mowen at 6, TPN was walking should not have started with him!

 

[Mank]

We are supposedly the number two rugby nation. So we must have some talented players.

Actually, this kind of struck a note with me. I understand that most of you are not pleased with the manner of defeats, and even victories, but in terms of objective measurements, #2 ranking is doing pretty damn well.

Your argument above could actually be completely incorrect. One could argue it the other way completely, saying, given the current batch of players, #2 is a remarkable feat.

 

[disco]

please stop brining up the scotland loss. that was an ARU and mother nature issue, not a deans issue.
samoa - it was a trial match for fringe players predominantly. and many of those players underestimated the quality of the samoan team. i don't lay as much blame on deans for this. it was clear his tactic was for a trial match. dissapointing the players were so woeful.

deans should be judged at the end of the RC and he should be judged on his overall record, not just his bledisloe record. that said, i think he'll be gone at the end of it. but.while he doesnt have anything close to a winning record against the ABS, he has improved the winning rate over the boks, england, wales.
overall its not that bad, but at the forefront is his poor record against the ABs.

His coaching record isn't so good against Scotland & Samoa either.

 

[rsea]

Deans needs to step down. Its been a total fucking disaster from day 1 and i see no indications of improvement. Fall on your sword and move on.


(Sent from my iPhone)

 

[ChargerWA]

I didn't actually watch the game. I have Foxtel but decided to stay out finishing a deck I was building instead of coming in to watch the horror show I suspected was about to unfold. Robbie Deans shitty selections and no existant game plans have me so frustrated that it has taken some of the shine off the game I love.

I can accept being beaten by a better team. What I can't accept is:

• A complete lack of identifiable game plan beyond "pass it to Beale, JOC (James O'Connor), Cooper, whoever is his current wunderkind".
• Robbies continued selection of his pet projects (Timani, Horne etc) over good honest hard workers (Douglas, A Fainga'a (I know he played Saturday, but as injury cover to McCabe) etc) who might add some starch to our pack and defence. And furthermore reward guys who might not be so naturally talented, but have dragged themselves to the pinnacle of the sport through hard work and determination, bringing some guts and heart to the squad.
• His bizarre penchant for playing professional rugby players out of their specialist position. Last year most of the backline played in a position they did not play in Super Rugby.
• His bizarre penchant for playing props on the oppsite side of the scrum to which they have played all year in Super rugby.
• Being obviously out coached numerous times and never being able to clearly out coach anyone else.
• Refusing to use the bench when blindingly appropriate.
• Persevering with players who clearly don't cut it or are woefully out of form (Maáfu, Alexander, Timani, Horne).
• Willingness to throw the players under the bus, but never accept any responsibilty when out coached or having made poor selections.

A couple of the above happening occasionally would be tolerable. To watch all of the above happen at once seems like some sort of bad dream.