The Wallabies Thread

[cyclopath]

Wow. Seems it's impossible for some people round here to praise one player without shitting on another. And here's me thinking having 2 or more potential Test level 10s would be cool. Both Quade and Foley have things to offer, and who knows, maybe someone can work out if Leali'ifano or To'omua are 10s or 12s as well?
Why can't Quade Cooper be discussed in a thread without it turning into a toxic waste dump?

 

[Pfitzy]

Because fuck wits.

Moving on: I like Reg's latest selection. Just crazy enough to work!

 

[USARugger]

Foley vs. Cooper aside - the Wallabies have some seemingly systemic issues with their attack at the moment that would clip the wings of any flyhalf.

One of the big ones being that it seems we've nearly forgotten what an inside ball is or what the A-Gap/First Channel is.. Or what the blind side is.

If Foley is supposed to be this dynamic "running" (don't even get me started on how fucking stupid I think that concept is) flyhalf why the fuck did it take us an hour to throw an inside ball in Melbourne and why are we selecting two wingers when neither of them really excel at running in traffic (we arguably still had bodies that fit that bill in camp and could have just moved Kerevi to the inside channel and DHP to 13 for these calls - it doesn't matter if they see it coming. The point is to fix the inside defenders, breaking the line in that channel is just a huge bonus if it happens).

Why do we seem to be fucking fixated on this same-way pattern? If we're going to stretch the field so much why not push it back inside for a phase before having Foley come around the corner on the other side and launch a raid down the short side. We have a mobile enough pack to cover the extra ground and can you imagine what Foley/Kerevi/Folau could do in a 3 on 2/3 in limited space?

Attacking kicks to Izzy has already been mentioned a few times.

We were actually doing some of this stuff at the RWC but not so much anymore.

We're going wide without going forward again and our attack has become stale, predictable, and stupid at times.

I also can't figure out for the life of me why Fardy has been asked to seagull so much. I don't really think he's all that special as a ball runner and he doesn't really have an offloading game that you'd be looking for him to have so that he could exploit the size mismatch you want on the wing when you push a loosie out there. But he's very effective at the ruck on both attack and defense. I don't get it.

And why do we require a second playmaker to identify when a man is in a fucking mile of space as we are attacking 10m out from the goal line? That's actually a little pathetic and we made the English defense look even better than they were. Nearly every player in the squad should be able to recognize and exploit an opportunity so glaringly obvious.

Larkham, Cheika, whoever the hell our skills coach is, and the players need to have a hard look at the current state of our attack.

 

[cyclopath]

^^^
I think a big part of the issue is the lack of quick go-forward and recycle from the piggies. Fast front-foot ball. England have been very good at slowing our ball enough to allow defensive re-setting. Backs getting pushed deeper and more static. If that had been going better, I think line breaks would have come, maybe just a few extra that might have made a difference. Sure, we recycled ball a lot and with high completion rate (98% in 2nd Test) but to what end?
I really think the absence of several key players has stymied the attack plan and the coaching team seem not to have really developed a plan B for when those breaks / half-breaks don't come; Beale or Giteau obviously, Tomane or similar running those inside lines. It's an overall malaise, not just the lack of Superman passes to wide channels or chip kicks and so on (not that some of these things might not have worked). Foley tries to take the line on, but it isn't going to work with a wall defence and no-one to capitalise on a half-break. It just looks to me like no-one really knows what to do most of the time. For mine it is a coaching failure first and foremost. But players too must own it, and should be doing better. And undoubtedly better execution of basic skills and plays including kicking would be good!
I don't think it would appreciably change with another player at 10 - be that Leali'ifano, To'omua or hypothetically Quade. Doesn't mean maybe trying one or other shouldn't be considered. I think the attacking plan development needs a good hard look, going forward. I'm not convinced Larkham is doing a lot.

 

[USARugger]

^^^
I think a big part of the issue is the lack of quick go-forward and recycle from the piggies. Fast front-foot ball. England have been very good at slowing our ball enough to allow defensive re-setting. Backs getting pushed deeper and more static. If that had been going better, I think line breaks would have come, maybe just a few extra that might have made a difference. Sure, we recycled ball a lot and with high completion rate (98% in 2nd Test) but to what end?

This times a thousand.

I've seen our ruck completion stats paraded around on here a bit over the last week but after watching the Melbourne test it's pretty clear that the stats aren't painting the whole picture. Watching our ball get slowed by players coming in or falling through the gate while one of our best ruck men is a mile away on the wing was incredibly frustrating (not to mention we're lacking raw pace on the wings so why the hell not have Hooper out there instead to compensate).

Aside from that, Cheika doesn't seem to either have a plan for a hard rush defense or isn't willing to implement it. The 'Tahs struggled just the same trying to deal with this type of defense under Cheika and it doesn't seem much has changed. If between Cheika and Larkham we can't come up with a way to attack a rush defense.. that's incredibly alarming.

"Sticking to your guns" and "making the opposition play to your game plan" is fucking stupid when your game plan is pretty shit against theirs. It's stupid at best, prideful at worst.

 

[Viking]

Larkham is my all time favourite player. I am a die hard Brumbie fan. But I do not rate Larkham as a coach - especially not an attack coach.

The attack at the Brumbies has not looked good in the last 2 years. Surprisingly it was at it's peak when Jake White was playing "Jake-ball" But if you look at the highlights of those years there was some bloody good back-line play from the like of Lilo, Mogg, Nic White combining well- very varied attack with chip kicks, set-play moves, inside balls, wide balls, grubbers etc.

Larkham was suppose to make the Brumbies even more of an attacking threat because apparently they kicked too much with Jake White. My opinion is that it has gone backwards.

 

[USARugger]

I don't even think calling the way the Brumbies played at the time "Jake Ball" is even necessarily fair. Their overall play style reminded me more of what the All Blacks do than anything else, just less offloading.

They weren't afraid to get into a kicking duel because they knew they could likely win it and also had three absolutely deadly broken field runners in the back three if an opportunity presented itself. They used this and their line out to get themselves into favorable field position before keeping ball in hand and executing with accuracy and pace inside the opposition 22.

Sure, they would take long penalties if on hand but it's not like they were some kicking-fixated team that struggled to score tries. If anything, they were incredibly good at using kicking to create pressure and put themselves in favorable position to score tries (Wallabies could learn a lot here).

 

[ACT Crusader]

^^^
I think a big part of the issue is the lack of quick go-forward and recycle from the piggies. Fast front-foot ball. England have been very good at slowing our ball enough to allow defensive re-setting. Backs getting pushed deeper and more static. If that had been going better, I think line breaks would have come, maybe just a few extra that might have made a difference. Sure, we recycled ball a lot and with high completion rate (98% in 2nd Test) but to what end?

What England did surprisingly well was a combination of slowing ball but also mixing it up with committing only one or maybe two at the most to the breakdown. Their defensive organisation was very good with plenty of players fanned out limiting the holes and space for the Aussie ball runners.

It was an excellent strategy by England.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Foley vs. Cooper aside - the Wallabies have some seemingly systemic issues with their attack at the moment that would clip the wings of any flyhalf.

One of the big ones being that it seems we've nearly forgotten what an inside ball is or what the A-Gap/First Channel is.. Or what the blind side is.

If Foley is supposed to be this dynamic "running" (don't even get me started on how fucking stupid I think that concept is) flyhalf why the fuck did it take us an hour to throw an inside ball in Melbourne and why are we selecting two wingers when neither of them really excel at running in traffic (we arguably still had bodies that fit that bill in camp and could have just moved Kerevi to the inside channel and DHP to 13 for these calls - it doesn't matter if they see it coming. The point is to fix the inside defenders, breaking the line in that channel is just a huge bonus if it happens).

Why do we seem to be fucking fixated on this same-way pattern? If we're going to stretch the field so much why not push it back inside for a phase before having Foley come around the corner on the other side and launch a raid down the short side. We have a mobile enough pack to cover the extra ground and can you imagine what Foley/Kerevi/Folau could do in a 3 on 2/3 in limited space?

Hooray! Someone has said what I've been thinking all week. One of the ways we opened England up last year was the through switching the angle and direction of attack and throwing short inside balls to runners in motion. I didn't see us do it once in Melbourne. Why not have Kerevi, Izzy or Horne running an angle back on Foley's inside shoulder, even if it was towards the oncoming England back row, to suck in some defenders and then quickly recycle? We just aren't asking enough questions of the defence right now.

 

[fatprop]

Hooray! Someone has said what I've been thinking all week. One of the ways we opened England up last year was the through switching the angle and direction of attack and throwing short inside balls to runners in motion. I didn't see us do it once in Melbourne. Why not have Kerevi, Izzy or Horne running an angle back on Foley's inside shoulder, even if it was towards the oncoming England back row, to suck in some defenders and then quickly recycle? We just aren't asking enough questions of the defence right now.

Foley and Beale do a lot of inside passes at the Tahs, I would guess it comes down to the game plan in attack

Larkham had the ponies going to the edges quickly quite successfully this season, he seems to be rolling with a second line of attack to go around the poms.

But they are making good decisions when to rush or drift to negate that width; and also slowing down the ball at the breakdown by making "judicious" decisions to screw up Phipps's service; which is allowing their defence to re-set

 

[Viking]

Foley and Beale do a lot of inside passes at the Tahs, I would guess it comes down to the game plan in attack

Larkham had the ponies going to the edges quickly quite successfully this season, he seems to be rolling with a second line of attack to go around the poms.

But they are making good decisions when to rush or drift to negate that width; and also slowing down the ball at the breakdown by making "judicious" decisions to screw up Phipps's service; which is allowing their defence to re-set

This combined with our attack not aligning to have inside runners. Horne, DHP, Kerevi, Kuridrani, Folau didn't once position themselves in an inside channel.

Foley was very very poor but isn't the only one to blame. You would think Horne and Folau would be combining well with Foley given they play together at the Tahs.

 

[Scrubber2050]

My points exactly.

How do you deduce that UJ "was just poor"? He never played a single Super Rugby game and in fact missed most of the period he was at the Reds due to injury. Apparently he's looked alright for Toulon though

Your comments weren't that Horwill wasn't performing at the level he once did. They were that he should be dropped because of that. Some of us more balanced observers noted that would be cutting of your nose to spite your face if there wasn't a superior alternative.

Ben Daley has been a great part of the Reds. He was a pretty good scrummager as part of the "tripod" in 2010. When the Reds focus on scrummaging dropped off, his did too but he was an integral member due to his work in tight on the field. Funnily enough, when the Reds scrum focus improved, so did Daley's scrummaging. Which you also said was poor only a few weeks ago (despite it being good when fit) and claimed he was behind Fa'agase in the pecking order now, despite being selected over Fa'agase and Fa'agase struggling in his first start this year against the Rebels.

But that's probably not really related to The Wallabies for 2016 and onwards.

Very interesting that you think Quade was "running the team". Goes against Link's comments about him being very tactically astute considering that the tactics and selections seemed to go well against anything that suited Quade.

Most of your post just doesn't warrant a reply

BUT when Link was there Link controlled the team Under RG it was totally different.

AND I agree that Quade is a great tactical strategist of the game. The trouble he had in the last few years was implementing that on a consistent basis.

As said before I look forward to his return to Ballymore.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Indeed it doesn't, as you don't have one.

Yes he had a lot of trouble the last few years doing it on a consistent basis. A lot of that is because it's very difficult to consistently implement something on the field when you are consistently injured and off the field.

 

[fatprop]

This combined with our attack not aligning to have inside runners. Horne, DHP, Kerevi, Kuridrani, Folau didn't once position themselves in an inside channel.

Foley was very very poor but isn't the only one to blame. You would think Horne and Folau would be combining well with Foley given they play together at the Tahs.

If they "didn't once" was it not in the plan not to? or did the support runners "forget"

 

[Viking]

If they "didn't once" was it not in the plan not to? or did the support runners "forget"

DHP did it in the first test and nearly bloody scored a try if it wasn't for a last ditch effort from Haskell (i think it was Haskell).

Not sure why they would suddenly abandon it completely in the second test.

 

[boyo]

As for being more demure, do you think that will mean he wears less sleeveless tops when he is out and about?

.

 

[Gnostic]

Larkham is my all time favourite player. I am a die hard Brumbie fan. But I do not rate Larkham as a coach - especially not an attack coach.



The attack at the Brumbies has not looked good in the last 2 years. Surprisingly it was at it's peak when Jake White was playing "Jake-ball" But if you look at the highlights of those years there was some bloody good back-line play from the like of Lilo, Mogg, Nic White combining well- very varied attack with chip kicks, set-play moves, inside balls, wide balls, grubbers etc.



Larkham was suppose to make the Brumbies even more of an attacking threat because apparently they kicked too much with Jake White. My opinion is that it has gone backwards.

It is interesting. I look back on the Brumbies play, excluding the first game this year and see it mirrored in what the Wallabies produced. If somebody was interested they could compare the stats, I suspect there will be some very stark similarities.

I hope nobody ever tries to do a Hickey with those stats.

 

[Tip]

One of my favorite plays of Larkhams as a player was him taking it to the line, only to stand still in time before throwing an epic cutout inside ball to the Chris Latham steam train running next to the ruck.

I haven't seen this play from any player under Stevie.

 

[fatprop]

DHP did it in the first test and nearly bloody scored a try if it wasn't for a last ditch effort from Haskell (i think it was Haskell).

Not sure why they would suddenly abandon it completely in the second test.

It returned on Saturday night

 

[Viking]

Does Coleman call the line-outs?

If so, I'm liking the idea of a future lock pairing of:

4. Coleman
5. Arnold / Douglas

Maybe a year or two away form where they want to be but come RWC they should be firing.