I am afraid that the worthy Dr Grant has correctly identified the symptoms then made the wrong diagnosis.
I suspect I'm in a sub-group which has only one member, but I am convinced that the underlying reason why our team cannot sustain intensity over 80 minutes is that there is not enough emphasis on strength training in their conditioning.
Some weeks ago I posted an article on the blog titled,
"Wallabies: the right conditioning for the 3Ns?" In it I pointed out that in the 8 Wallabies-All Blacks Tests since Robbie Deans has taken over the Wallabies have led at half time on 6 occasions. However, they have lost 7 out of 8 second halves and 7 out of 8 matches! The only time they won the second half and the match was the first match after Deans and his assistants had taken over.
The fact that in their current conditioning, every one of the players is fitted with a GPS tracking device to "record the intensity of their training" is indicative of an obsession with aerobic fitness.
Traditionally Australian rugby has placed less emphasis on strength and physicality than any of the other major rugby nations and this tendency has become more pronounced in the Deans era. This is not the way that Deans's Crusaders teams were prepared. At Canterbury legendary conditioner Ashley Jones is a great advocate of strongman training like farmer's walks and tractor tyre flipping.
