Wallabies v All Blacks Melbourne

[chief]

Depends what game plan you have. Burgess is in form, remember, and Genia is injury-prone.

He's far from injury prone. Burgess is horrible and inconsistent. Burgess in form is still a fair way away from 3 Nations. When not in form, he has got to be one of the worst S14 half backs I've seen.

 

[Jethro Tah]

New Zealand on verge of greatness, says Macqueen
Reuters - July 28, 2010, 6:55 pm

MELBOURNE, July 28 (Reuters) - New Zealand are the litmus test for teams with World Cup ambitions and have assembled a side that stands on the cusp of greatness, former Australia coach Rod Macqueen said on Wednesday.

Macqueen, who led the Wallabies to their second World Cup triumph in Wales in 1999, said the All Blacks possessed the hallmarks of the Sean Fitzpatrick-captained sides of the 1990s.

"I suspect that it's a side at the moment that's probably on the verge of greatness and looking back at the last decade, probably getting back to the Fitzpatrick-type days -- that kind of team that's quite measured and doing very well," Macqueen told reporters.

"(New Zealand's) Achilles heel in the past has been not having a plan B, when things start to go wrong, they continue to go wrong.

"But we're seeing instances now within the New Zealand side that they're making decisions themselves within the team and they seem fairly confident and when things start to go wrong they come back pretty quickly."

The top-ranked All Blacks were second to South Africa in the Tri-Nations last year, but routed the champions in their opening two home matches with an ominous blend of pace and power. They face the Wallabies at Melbourne's Docklands stadium on Saturday.

Much of the All Blacks' quality could be put down to the captaincy of flanker Richie McCaw, Macqueen said, who had anchored the playing group over a period of years.

"(McCaw's) been a nice steadying influence in there over a period of time and when you look at some of the down-times New Zealand had, they were chopping and changing the captaincies and so on.

"You've got a fairly stable lot there now. The coaching staff hasn't changed a lot for quite a while and the captaincy and leaders within the group (haven't changed), and it's come together quite nicely."

Macqueen was less bullish about Australia's World Cup prospects, saying the young side had hard work to do and needed to take notes from their match on Saturday.

"I think they'll know a lot better after this match. I think this is going to answer a lot of questions," Macqueen said.

Shouldn't this go in the Jinx thread?

 

[Scotty]

He's far from injury prone. Burgess is horrible and inconsistent. Burgess in form is still a fair way away from 3 Nations. When not in form, he has got to be one of the worst S14 half backs I've seen.

I hope that #1 Tah is winding us up, although I suspect it might be that he is just too one eyed to see the differences in these two players. Either way, not too much point in entering a discussion!

 

[DPK]

He's far from injury prone. Burgess is horrible and inconsistent. Burgess in form is still a fair way away from 3 Nations. When not in form, he has got to be one of the worst S14 half backs I've seen.

You're exaggerating for effect, right?

 

[fatprop]

He's far from injury prone. Burgess is horrible and inconsistent. Burgess in form is still a fair way away from 3 Nations. When not in form, he has got to be one of the worst S14 half backs I've seen.

Burgess is an athlete who plays rugby, wonderful defence, wonderful workrate but he is let down by his pass - but he isn't crap. Genia appears to be a real footballer

 

[RedsHappy]

Burgess is an athlete who plays rugby, wonderful defence, wonderful workrate but he is let down by his pass - but he isn't crap. Genia appears to be a real footballer

Agree. But fp and DPK, what I find remarkable is that his erratic pass problem has been evident for some time now and yet he hasn't been able to correct it. He comes across as a smart bloke, who'd naturally work hard on his game. Must be a mental/pressure issue, because his physical and athletic ability seems well up to correcting - with the right technical assistance - those awful flaws.

 

[Scotty]

Genia seems to have developed that steely Greganesque stare and concentration already. The sky is the limit for this bloke.

 

[fatprop]

I think it could be an adrenalin thing, he is excitable and works himself up and loses composure

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I like Burgess as a player, but he needs to address the quality of his pass. One of the reasons why Giteau had trouble at 10 was because he would never have felt confident of where the ball was going from the ruck base, scrum base or line out. It was all over the place. Luke's pass is just not international standard IMHO. Other parts of his game are, but the pass is 80% of a half backs job.

There were few better examples of the gap in quality between Genia and Burgess than the test in Perth last year. We were getting pumped for most of that match, with at least 50% of the reason being from our own mistakes. Genia comes on and all of a sudden the backs are getting the ball delivered consistently out in front of them at pace. We looked a different team and it was proven during the better parts of the EOYT.

 

[farva]

One problem I had with Sanchez during the last test was that he looked to be passing either directly to, or a little behind the players instead of a little bit in front of them. Especially to the forwards sitting on his shoulder. That meant that the player was stationary when they received the ball, and didn't have any run when attacking the line. Hence when the Bok forwards came up at them, we either lost ground, or had not net gain.
If he was to pass the ball slightly in front of the player, then the forward would have some momentum to carry them over the advantage line and we could have made ground, and broken up the Bok defensive line a little better.

Having said that, it is much better than having the ball thrown over the head of the receiving player as we were getting with Burgess.

 

[Scotty]

Yeah, Genia's passing wasn't up to his normal standard, but he has only just come back from a broken hand, so it might take a little time.

 

[Scott Allen]

I've just posted the stats on the Wallabies v Springboks from Saturday including a look at Genia's passing - http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/statistics-wallabies-v-springboks-brisbane/

For comparison this post has the stats for Burgess and Genia in the first four games of 2010 and video of their passing - http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/video-wallaby-halfback-passing/

Genia's passing accuracy on Staurday was far and away the best performance of either of them in the first 5 games of 2010. Still had 22% of passes at the man but only 1 poor pass.

 

[DPK]

Agree. But fp and DPK, what I find remarkable is that his erratic pass problem has been evident for some time now and yet he hasn't been able to correct it. He comes across as a smart bloke, who'd naturally work hard on his game. Must be a mental/pressure issue, because his physical and athletic ability seems well up to correcting - with the right technical assistance - those awful flaws.

Can't argue against Burgess having an erratic pass; anyone remember the pass over the dead ball line in France?

There's still a lot of time for Burgess. I dont think he will replace Genia, but if Burgess corrected his pass and built momentum and confidence, he would be the sort of player a coach would bring on to boost a fading team.

Say a team who is up at half time and begins to lose momentum around the 50 minute mark... ringing any bells?

 

[Scotty]

I doubt you will see Deans take off Genia many times unless injured. He is one of the more composed members of the wallaby team, and just look at the try he scored in about the 75th minute.

 

[daz]

Agree. But fp and DPK, what I find remarkable is that his erratic pass problem has been evident for some time now and yet he hasn't been able to correct it. He comes across as a smart bloke, who'd naturally work hard on his game. Must be a mental/pressure issue, because his physical and athletic ability seems well up to correcting - with the right technical assistance - those awful flaws.

What RH is really trying to say: Deans is shit. Another fail!

 

[Reddy!]

New Zealand on the verge of greatness? That's what they said about what Wallabies at the start of last years Tri-Nations and look what happened!

 

[RedsHappy]

What RH is really trying to say: Deans is shit. Another fail!

Not really, I'm just surprised that Burgess' passing defects seemingly can't be fixed. It's a serious point in that if costly defects in otherwise good players can be removed - or substantially reduced - voila, added depth as DPK said above re how handy Burgess could be in some game scenarios. Ditto QC (Quade Cooper) and his defence, that issue for him has been known for years, but he doesn't seem to have improved it much (and, possibly, trying too hard to show he has may have contributed to his suspension.). Whether these are coaching-related issues or not, hard to say. Certainly, technically specialised coaching (and maybe mental skills coaching) must have some potential role to play in this area.

More generally, I guess it is also true that if each Wallabies player could improve his 'non-core' skills (that are secondary to the core skills needed in his position) by say 20%, well the overall team error rate might fall significantly over time.

Far from a perfect analogy I know, but top cricket teams focus greatly now in working to have their bowlers (via batting coaching) drive up their tail end batting average, as history shows that in tight games those extra runs from the tail can determine wins or losses.

 

[Scotty]

New Zealand on the verge of greatness? That's what they said about what Wallabies at the start of last years Tri-Nations and look what happened!

It isn't what Rod Macqueen said though.

 

[daz]

Far from a perfect analogy I know, but top cricket teams focus greatly now in working to have their bowlers (via batting coaching) drive up their tail end batting average, as history shows that in tight games those extra runs from the tail can determine wins or losses.

Hmm. Since the Australian cricket team are now ranked #5 in the world for test playing nations, perhaps the #3 ranked Wobs could teach them something?

 

[Lee Grant]

its just numbers on a jersey lads. Expect to see BB at first receiver and Gits swanning around our wider anyway.

... and/or Barnes on one side of the ruck and Giteau on the other.