Wallabies 31 Man Squad

[lewisr]

A few things regarding Deans and Cooper have just occurred to me:

1. If Deans thinks Cooper is behind Taps form slump, why didn't he pick Taps?

2. If Deans believes having a 10 that is too involved hurts the playmaking ability of your 12 and thus has opted for JOC (James O'Connor), why in all likelihood is Deans going to go for a non playmaking 12 in Horne but a playmaking 15?

3. If Deans thinks playmaking is important outside of 10, why did he match Cooper with McCabe, A Finger and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) as the centres and fullback in the World Cup semi?

4. If Deans selected him on the past 38 occasions when he even less balanced as he is now, why has he opted Edit:against him this time?

 

[redstragic]

A few things regarding Deans and Cooper have just occurred to me:

1. If Deans thinks Cooper is behind Taps form slump, why didn't he pick Taps?

2. If Deans believes having a 10 that is too involved hurts the playmaking ability of your 12 and thus has opted for JOC (James O'Connor), why in all likelihood is Deans going to go for a non playmaking 12 in Horne but a playmaking 15?

3. If Deans thinks playmaking is important outside of 10, why did he match Cooper with McCabe, A Finger and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) as the centres and fullback in the World Cup semi?

Scotty, this made my head hurt. I hate that we have become a bunch of tin hat wearers trying to interpret Dean's actions and words. It should not be this messed up. Pulver, I want my wallabies back. Quick!!!!

 

[BDA]

2. If Deans believes having a 10 that is too involved hurts the playmaking ability of your 12 and thus has opted for JOC (James O'Connor), why in all likelihood is Deans going to go for a non playmaking 12 in Horne but a playmaking 15?

Hopefully we get Lilo at inside centre. A JOC (James O'Connor)/Lilo 10/12 could be pretty dynamic

 

[Blue]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...-was-not-prepared-to-take-20130519-2jun6.html

Apologies if that got posted already but in my opinion it sums up the situation very well.

O'Connor gets the gig because for years Robbie has seen him as the man. Robbie will live or die by this decision. Beat the Lions and he was right, lose and the Quade brigade has a ticket to go apeshit.

A gamble it is, but quite a calculated one I reckon.

 

[Ignoto]

A few things regarding Deans and Cooper have just occurred to me:

1. If Deans thinks Cooper is behind Taps form slump, why didn't he pick Taps?

What I'm more interested is comparing one kiwi coaches selections to another's. Henry time and time again picked Nonu, a guy who was doing pretty poorly at club level but when he donned that black jersey his game was turned around. There's other players I could name, but the general just was, Henry and Hansen could take out of form players and turn them into World Cup winning players.

However, the longer the players are in camp with Robbie, the worse they become.

I do love how Robbie is fairly criticising Cooper, after all, that World Cup review must be so good that its not being released to the public.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Good too see Robbie lobbing grenades via the media actually. Perhaps he is more suited to politics.

 

[Cosmo Jones]

Amazingly, JOC (James O'Connor) was really poor vs the Blues before he went off injured. A similar performance from Cooper would have been panned, and people would have been pointing to that performance for reasons to not pick Cooper. A classic example is how many have pointed out Cooper's miss vs the Cheetahs when he slipped, but not mentioned how easily JOC (James O'Connor) was bumped off three times in the Blues game.

There is definitely people who deny that Cooper plays poorly when he does, but on the other hand many many more people here hold Cooper to standards that they do not to anyone else.

There is still one poster here who routinely posts whenever Cooper makes a mistake, e.g. kicks out on the full, gets a charge down, gets an intercept, yet does not when anyone else does, including JOC (James O'Connor) who did both vs the Chiefs to gift the Chiefs a few tries. That's two games now where Cooper would have been panned by a lot of people for those mistakes, yet JOC (James O'Connor) has avoided the same criticism, most notably from Deans.

I'm disappointed in Deans believing Cooper is apparently the 5th choice (or worse) fly half in Aus; and if you think it's solely for the reasons Deans has publicly stated, then you're very, very wrong in my opinion. Deans is clearly doing the same thing as I mentioned: holding Cooper to a higher standard than others to excuse himself for leaving Cooper out.

Just to give you an idea on how ridiculous it is with Deans, Deans has now blamed Cooper for Taps having bad form. Is it Cooper's fault that Cooper puts Taps in a break, and Taps drops the ball? Is it Cooper's fault that Taps has been missing tackles? Is it Cooper's fault that Taps' ability to break tackles and his left foot step have gone MIA? Now to put it fairly, the Rebels' 12 has been struggling too, outside of JOC (James O'Connor) recently, yet JOC (James O'Connor) once again avoids any sort of blame.

(Source.)

It's pretty clear that Deans does not want Cooper in his squad, and will come up with any excuse on why he should not be there. It is now up to Cooper to make Deans look dumb in his game vs the BILs. I wish Cooper the best of luck there.

Finally, the biggest peice of evidence of how Deans feels about Cooper was at the bottom of the above aticle:



So Deans doesn't even bother to take the time to tell Cooper he will not be chosen ahead of time. Tells you exactly how much Deans respects Cooper.

While for me Deans not selecting Cooper was not a surprise, people defending Deans to say that it is not personal between him and Cooper is a surprise. Especially with the above evidence.

Anyway, I wish JOC (James O'Connor) the best of luck against the BILs. I wish him the best of luck. Personally I think he's been dealt a bit of shit sandwich with his lack of experience at 10 and being put in such a pressure series with no preparation and coming off an injury, but I am hoping he does the job for us.

And to Deans, I hope you're sacked sooner rather than later as I just don't think you have the vision, communication and man management ability required for the head coach of the Wallabies.

Ash for prime minister! You are spot on with every point there IMO, couldnt have put it any better. I think Cooper has some of the best ball handling skills in the world and great game instincts and vision to match it. It seems that Cooper is the one people find easiest to insult, perhaps because of a disappointing RWC? Certainly Cooper has been overly impressive this season and is the form flyhalf in the country at the moment from what ive seen. Looking forward to the day Deans if finally sacked (I still think hes a double agent sent from New Zealand to destroy Aussie rugby but that might just be me) and someone like Ewen McKenzie takes over!

 

[Ged]

Good too see Robbie lobbing grenades via the media actually. Perhaps he is more suited to politics.

Yeah he should join the ALP - his efforts at ruthless character assassination of QC (Quade Cooper) today would give Julia, Swannie and co a run for their money on the job they did on Kevvy. And the Horrotahs faction is not dissimilar to the ALP Right, jobs for the boys and the yes men, pick them on lack of talent so they don't show you up.

Seriously, I'm thinking of selling my tickets. I'm just not sure if I can get up to support the team with so many sub-standard, unfair or unfit selections - players who've been given multiple chances, and failed.

Deans said to win a rugby match, you've got to score tries, but we haven't done that for ages under him. It is clear we'll have the same predictable game plan.

Same failed players, same failed gameplan.

Albert Einstein defined insanity perfectly: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Yeah but we had all our best attacking players injured last year when we tried to implement our dour game plan, so it will definitely be better this time!

 

[maxdacat]

"That might be part of Deans thinking."

"That's probably what Deans is thinking."

"What Deans is probably thinking is."

this is probably what the players say as well after he has finished speaking.

You left out "WTF was Deans thinking?"

 

[Ash]

Everyone please hurry up and get the Cooper omission off their chest. I have - and moved on. Sure, no Cooper still rankles me, but I'll still support the Wallabies come Lions time (without supporting Deans, if that's somehow possible!). A loss to those stodgy NH type will suck, with or without Cooper. Royally.

The sooner everyone has had their say and moved on the sooner we can get to discussing all the other factors of the squad and Lions games, and there's still plenty to discuss.

 

[No4918]

Seriously, I'm thinking of selling my tickets. I'm just not sure if I can get up to support the team with so many sub-standard, unfair or unfit selections - players who've been given multiple chances, and failed.

Dibs.

Terrible reason to not attend this tour. Give yourself an uppercut

 

[daz]

Seriously, I'm thinking of selling my tickets. I'm just not sure if I can get up to support the team with so many sub-standard, unfair or unfit selections - players who've been given multiple chances, and failed.

Well, what are you waiting for? Give them up. Fuck, sell 'em on the thread within these very fora. They will go in seconds; there are thousands of people who missed out that would love to go in your place.

This kind of shit really pisses me off. Sure, you can have opinions about the selection and you can disagree with the selectors who choose the guys to wear the jersey, but are you telling me that your support of the 22 men of Gold who represent us is so easily challenged?

What do you want them to do? Refuse the call up because they know deep down they aren't good enough? Pull your head in, please.

My bet is you won't get rid of them, and you will go to the game. I also bet you will be cheering right up there with the rest of us when we win the series. Let me tell you - based on that comment from you above, you don't deserve to.

 

[Ged]

Dibs.

Terrible reason to not attend this tour. Give yourself an uppercut

Left uppercut. Right uppercut. Shake the head.
Nope, still feel this way.
And for the record, I'm no fair-weather friend. I went to or watched every single Reds game religiously from 2003-2007, and never gave up on them. Never gave up on the Greg Smith 96-7 team, the Eddie 05 team, or any of Deans previous failed years.

 

[Ash]

I reckon you have to have 5 props and 3 hookers, not so sure about the other two since some back rowers are flexible (Dennis) and could be the lock cover off the bench if necessary. That means you can have a trained up line out. A similar logic applies to prop and hooker. As Scott said on the podcast, you really need that third hooker to have thrown the ball in some line outs.

On the lock front, though, I wonder if picking Timani doesn't necessitate taking another lock. He's not even remotely a line out option.

I wouldn't be surprised if Deans doesn't take a 5th prop, but does take a 3rd hooker and 4th lock.

Logic behind the no 5th prop is that he has a couple of guys who Deans probably thinks can cover both loosehead and tighthead in Kepu, Alexander and Slipper. Palmer or Ryan would've likely been the 5th prop (assuming Sio is considered too you and inexperienced), and they're both specialist tightheads. You could say that Slipper and Kepu are more tightheads than looseheads currently, and Alexander has mostly played at tighthead for the Wallabies.

Third scrumhalf? I reckon Deans won't take a third scrumhalf. If he was, then White would have been called up already, with Burgess to maybe follow later. Instead Deans is waiting on Burgess' availability (which I think is harsh on White, but that's another story). Although, it wouldn't surprise me if Deans ends up choosing Phipps, not because I agree, but because, well, it's Deans.

If it was a touring squad, though, you'd definitely have the 5 props, 3 hookers, 4 locks (or one backrow who is a genuine lock cover, moreso than Dennis) and 3 scrumhalves.

That will mean that the final makeup of 6 players to come in may also look like (along with who I expect Deans to select in brackets):
1 hooker (Hanson?)
1 lock (Douglas or MMM)
1 halfback (Burgess, Phipps or White)
1 centre (McCabe, otherwise A. Finger if McCabe is injured)
1 fullback / flyhalf cover (Beale, if Beale is out, maybe Cooper, but I really think Cooper won't be picked from here)
1 anything - can't second guess Deans here; could be the 5th prop, 3rd halfback (unlikely), or another wing/fullback if Beale is not available, like Mogg or Mitchell

The two least covered positions in the backline are 13 with just AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper), and 10 with mainly JOC (James O'Connor) (as I doubt that Deans will put a debutant 10/12 at 10 when he has played at 12 all year bar one game, where he didn't shine, and, this is me surmising, Barnes is considered more of a 12 / 15). This implies to me that McCabe and Beale (if available) are certain selections.

 

[lewisr]

My bet is you won't get rid of them, and you will go to the game. I also bet you will be cheering right up there with the rest of us when we win the series. Let me tell you - based on that comment from you above, you don't deserve to.

As much as I disagree with Ged's comment, the fact that he probably paid over 300 dollars for the ticket absolutely entitles him to have that opinion. Unlike the players, he is not employed by the ARU and is not bound by some code of ethics to respect or support the decisions made by the governing body. This is a democracy and free market and if the man is not satisfied with the product he has invested in, he is completely within his right to critique and bail on that investment.

Tickets are (were only yesterday) still available so to claim it is some god given honour to have been able to get a hold of one is slightly unfair on the man.

edit: not slightly, completely

 

[I like to watch]

....Seriously, I'm thinking of selling my tickets. I'm just not sure if I can get up to support the team with so many sub-standard, unfair or unfit selections - players who've been given multiple chances, and failed.

Toughen up Princess.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Everyone please hurry up and get the Cooper omission off their chest. I have - and moved on. Sure, no Cooper still rankles me, but I'll still support the Wallabies come Lions time (without supporting Deans, if that's somehow possible!). A loss to those stodgy NH type will suck, with or without Cooper. Royally.

The sooner everyone has had their say and moved on the sooner we can get to discussing all the other factors of the squad and Lions games, and there's still plenty to discuss.

Exactly. We can't have those guys in the NH going around telling everyone how weak Australian rugby is because they bored us to death in a three test series.

 

[RoffsChoice]

It seems we all agree (obviously) that there will be a 4th lock and 2nd scrumhalf in the additional 6. There is also a general consensus on there being a 5th prop.

Of the remaining three, chances are we will see another 6/8, 10 and 12. That last spot is hard to pick.........

 

[qwerty51]

The most interesting thing for me is if McMeniman comes back soon and has the same form will he add Douglas or MMM or both.