Wallabies v Poms, EOYT 2010, Twickenham

[Bowside]

Complete an utter rubbish. While he made mistakes, the Wallabies got smacked in spite of him.

But hey, if it makes you feel better then have all of it.

Wallabies didn't lose because of the ref. But the ref was poor around the breakdown.

 

[cyclopath]

Wallabies didn't lose because of the ref. But the ref was poor around the breakdown.

I don't think he was that poor, but he did what a few refs do and tended to "favour", for want of a better word, the dominant team. Because the Poms hit everything so hard and fast, they often ended up with players going through, and ending up on the wrong side, in much the way the ABs do sometimes. If they then get out of the way, fair enough. Sometimes they were not so fast to do so. I did note he was telling the Wallaby players to move away more than the English. The Wallabies could fix this by being more aggressive themselves. Or clean the transgressors out, hard.

 

[Bowside]

I don't think he was that poor, but he did what a few refs do and tended to "favour", for want of a better word, the dominant team. Because the Poms hit everything so hard and fast, they often ended up with players going through, and ending up on the wrong side, in much the way the ABs do sometimes. If they then get out of the way, fair enough. Sometimes they were not so fast to do so. I did note he was telling the Wallaby players to move away more than the English. The Wallabies could fix this by being more aggressive themselves. Or clean the transgressors out, hard.

I don't think he set a clear distinction in regards to releasing the tackled player. Sometimes you got away with it, some times you didn't. In any case it didn't help a timid wallabies team that was trying to not give away penalties for fear of being shamefucked in the scrum.

In any case, the Wallabies general breakdown play was poor, and far more damaging to their performance than anything the ref did.

 

[Hawko]

I think we got totally conned. Remember those comments Ford made about trinations tests not being real. We all got so incensed about how stupid the comment was we didn't realise that it was not an insult to us but an indication of what England intended to do and was entirely for internal consumption. So we did not really expect England to make such an effort to win the collisions and to run the ball with deadly purpose. Because we didn't expect it they caught us by surprise. That surprise was so bone deep we couldn't react to it over the 80.

 

[RedsHappy]

Coach selects players who lose games, Coach selects players who lose games again, Coach selects players who lose games once more. Coach directs players to play a losing game plan, coach directs players to play a losing game plan again, etc. Coach and players are the same thing. All responsible. All part of the team. It's like saying the German army are to blame for losing WW2, not Hitler, because they are the ones firing the guns.

Go Reddy! go! It beggars belief that anyone watching the Wallabies play from the England 2009 Test through the whole of 2010 Tests (culminating in last night's loss) could not conclude that there were/are serious coaching deficiencies in relation to this team, not merely Deans, I have never solely blamed him. Let's take 4 key areas (out of say 10 that could be discussed):

- just take the truly (sadly) laughable lineage of our Giteau's goal kicking debacle, after debacle, and multiple lost Tests through poor kicking (plus one more last night via JO'C that conceivably could have again been lost through poor goal kicking if, say, the Wallabies had scored a try or so more). Giteau's kicking record was only mediocre in 2008. Yet no specialist kicking coach was deployed to aid Gits until a crisis was on our door in mid-2010, the problems markedly worsened in late 2009 without a fresh kicker being used or developed, no back-up kickers were properly trained in-depth or used in 2008-9, and then we take a just-getting-really-good 20 yr old and massively double-burden him with kicking duties in high-pressure matches even though he has not consistently worked with a top kicking coaching specialist. The Wallabies Excuses Factory (WEF) will find some wondrous way of forgiving this insanity - that has spanned at least 15 months, with numerous junctures for potential correction - but it is merely atrociously negligent coaching, at both selections and skills development levels, and in terms of managing team/game risk. Anyone who thinks that consistent goal kicking excellence (in the 80+% range) is not simply essential to becoming to a genuinely world-beating team, needs to go back on the 101 books.

- let's take defence. Austin's excellent statistical analysis has shown that for much of 2010 we have been below the % successful tackles KPI likely to be required for consistent wins against the best teams. Deans has self-anointed as 'defence coach'. Deans has been in charge of the Wallabies for nearly 3 seasons, yet our defence KPIs have if anything deteriorated and in both Hong Kong and London there were repeated, quite serious lapses in defence technique and aggressiveness of application. No attempt appears to have been made to correct QC (Quade Cooper)'s 3rd XV club rugby defence. It is repeated and repeated. Then out of the blue, a club rugby, ex League man (with no Test or Intn experience) is parachuted in as a defence skills coach for the first time in late 2010. Clearly, no better coach could be found on an 'emergency needs basis', which is not how such coaches should be sourced in the first place. The development of absolute skill capability within an elite football team - by selection, deselection, or technical development - is an elite coach's responsibility. By any measure, Australia's defence quality and reliability is in a state of notable vulnerability and inconsistency. The WEF will have contortions over this point but the fact remains that a once great attribute of Wallaby play - a really reliable defensive wall - has been disassembled and largely lost.

- mental skills. I can hear the macho men dismiss this, but it's foolhardy to do so when (a) elite sports psychology coaching plays a major role in most big team sports today and is seen a key weapon in aiding the mental strengthening of both individuals and teams (b) the very best rugby team employs a full-time mental skills coach and openly applauds what he contributes to both older and newer players and (c) the Wallabies' team culture and capacity for 'hard mind' in battle has been shown - game after game - to be something that has a shelf-life of approximately 60 minutes at best, or occurs in little blocks of c.15 mins that randomly come and go. Look at last night; as soon as the surprising excellence of England stunned the Wallabies, the game plan seemed to become 'a plan a minute invented on site' and lost all coherence and patience. This facet of the Wallabies has become a largely permanent feature, not an optional extra. Coaches are there to find and lead solutions to these core problems that, unsolved, wreck a w-l ratio - but none has either been explored or found.

- forwards and breakdown. Now, we know that Bam is a world-class player that has executed superb breakdown and tackling work. But, Williams has been there nearly 3 years - can we say that we have seen the required deepening (2008 to 2010) of multi-player competence, intensity, application, consistency, technical shrewdness etc at the breakdown in the broader forwards group outside Bam? There may have been marginal improvement here and there, but are we approaching the calibre of the ABs and Boks in this game-changing area? Have enough of our core forwards matured into a group that we can rely upon to rabidly, every game, attack the breakdown with angry, mongrel passion and the type of precision that wins more t/os than the opposition? Have these forwards been selected - and deselected - carefully enough? This area of play is of course a combination of good selection, and excellence of specialist coaching over time.

Not even touched upon here: pig-headed oddities of very poor selections persisted with for ego ("I cannot be wrong") not earned-by-performance reasons; captaincy - Elsom increasingly looks a largely bad call; the typically high-risk roulette wheel of bench design and use policy; the inexplicable retention of Giteau at 12 (and as back-up 10) leading to the non-development of other, better players in that key position; the quiet disappearance of Graham the "Skills Coach" just prior to an RWC year when he should be indispensable by now; the odd non-use of BaaBaas and Aus A games to actually promote and experiment with good achievers from these games after they have shown credible promise; the non-selection - even for squad development - of competent props in, for example, Baxter, Weeks, Fairbrother, etc.

 

[DPK]

Merciful heavens, is that the longest post in G&GR's history? 963 words by my count.

How long did that take to write RH? Where can I get it on tape?

 

[Gnostic]

How did you count it? Why?

 

[Hugh Jarse]

With latest edit, the MS Word wordcount is 994 words. Awesome effort.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

How did you count it? Why?

Very simple and quick. Just copy and paste into a blank word document, and use the word count tool. I only word counted it 'coz The Konze did it first.

 

[cyclopath]

With latest edit, the MS Word wordcount is 994 words. Awesome effort.

I'm tempted to edit it myself and add 6 words to crack the grand, but that would be silly, and an abuse of power...
I hope RH spaces the other 6 areas of discussion out so the server doesn't crash.

 

[tragic]

I'm surprised not more was made of this. I was in disbelief both England tries were awarded. The first England try, Ashton deadset tacked Pocock who was in cover defence. Not to mention the obstruction to lead to the line break, which England were doing all day. An absolute farce. For the second try, I was wondering which England spoiler Joubert would yellow card. Madness. Joubert fucked us over.

I'm far from bitter. I thought England would beat us. I thought they played the better test rugby - high intensity, aggressive and clinical.

Didnt pick the pocock incident in real time - I was more focussed on the cynical line run by croft and tindall which essentially took out genia and AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) in defence. Marginal but probably just OK and not much worse than what Australia and NZ have done for the last few years.. The pocock incident was a shocker though - not only did ashton pull him down to the ground but he managed to stay on his feet himself to continue in support and take the final pass to score the try. England probably wouldnt have scored the try without it. I cant blame the ref I guess as I didnt even see it second time around on the replay.
Telling though that for all that has been said about our poor defence it took two infringements to get through....
Personally I don't think its time to panic - I would back the wallabies to win if we played again next week

 

[Blue]

The English are masters at puishing the bounds of the rules.

Everyone knows that. The trick is to score more points that it just doesn't matter.

Simple really.

 

[naza]

Link?

I thought Joubert was predictably lax around the ruck area and we should have taken more opportunities to, as RF mentions, get up offside, lie on the ball etc. But I don't think he significantly impacted the outcome. I might review that opinion if I can see the Pocock incident.

I've uploaded the clip of England's first try (Pocock getting taken out) at

[video=youtube;3pNX-rGBZic]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pNX-rGBZic[/video]

 

[Scotty]

I've uploaded the clip of England's first try (Pocock getting taken out) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pNX-rGBZic

Wow, that was right in front of Joubert. Hard to believe he didn't see it.

If you have time, I'd love to see the joke that was the turnover after our first real attacking play on their line. I reckon at least 3 English players came through offside at our ruck, but Joubert just waved it on as England secured the turnover.

And as I did say previously the Genia turnover would have resulted in a penalty to the attacking team 8 out of 10 times and probably a yellow 5 out of 10.

 

[MajorlyRagerly]

Jeez Naza, I never even noticed that in realtime - I guess most fans would be amazed at how much off the ball stuff happens when looking into it.

Firstly, first post in a while, so congratulations to your boys 2 weeks ago. Great game, good atmosphere (believe it or not) and I thought at that point, it might be the coming of age game for you the Junior Wallabies. It certainly left me, as an AB supporter, with a deep feeling int he gut of just how competitive this Wallaby team is going to be come RWC 2011 & probably 2015 as well. So congrats and well played there.

But last night, jesus. I only managed to watch it on a shitty web feed (side note, Aus & Eng's possibly biggest expat city.... had nowhere showing the game - WTF???) and from what I saw the English played good honest solid England rugby & then chucked it around a bit which upset the Wallaby rhythm. All a bit strange. But you've got to give it to the poms, they played as if it was men against boys & they won it deservingly so with a deserving scoreline.

Where to for your boys? Back to tackling practice for the most part. Barnes to start outside Cooper, perhaps giving the backline much more balance instead of so much flair. I dunno. But there are still a couple of games to get some redemption on this tour. Key thing will be to make the required changes (something I'm not sure Robbie is capable of doing) & keep the heads up.

Lots of talent in the Wob's, that's for bloody sure. Just needs to be handled correctly.

 

[naza]

Wow, that was right in front of Joubert. Hard to believe he didn't see it.

If you have time, I'd love to see the joke that was the turnover after our first real attacking play on their line. I reckon at least 3 English players came through offside at our ruck, but Joubert just waved it on as England secured the turnover.
.

Found the video on a planet rugby thread.

[video=youtube;ytg5AcPWPSw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytg5AcPWPSw[/video]

I concur - should have been a penalty to us, if not a yellow card.

 

[Scotty]

Thanks naza, wasn't actually the one I was refering to (I guess I should have said the first real attacking play we had in the first half), but thanks for the vid anyway.

 

[naza]

Thanks naza, wasn't actually the one I was refering to (I guess I should have said the first real attacking play we had in the first half), but thanks for the vid anyway.

Early Xmas present for you Scotty, here it is -

[video=youtube;UVBvT5xU2gk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVBvT5xU2gk[/video]

That decision shouldn't be a surprise. Joubert, like most refs, respects the more aggressive team. When in doubt, he will not bail you out.

Anyway, just wanted to have a crack at this video business, this is not a ref bagathon.

 

[Langthorne]

Reading through this thread has been quite an eye opener:

should we be happy to have lost as so many lessons were learnt?

should we just blame the ref and ignore the frailties of the team?

should we accept that our 10 can't tackle and try to work around it?

is the coach doing the best possible job?

are the best players being played?




NO!




Apart from his consistently under par defence, I was appalled with Cooper's jog back for Ashton's length of the field try. Yet again I say bench him.

 

[Elfster]

Joubert reffed in the tri-nations right? He sin binned Giteau for a bit of a cynical try saving action (and no warnings etc)...how many AB's were sin binned for similar try saving actions?? Not many in my recollection. Giteau deserved to be sin binned, but a bit of consistency would be nice. Though there does seem to be some consistency with some sides getting away with what they like.