Wallabies vs England, Sydney, 3rd Test, 25 June @ 8:00pm

[galumay]

Personally I think the coaching of the team, selections and management of the bench looked to be very poor over the last 3 weeks, and I am also entitled to my opinion.

You can have any opinion you wish, but that one looks very unlikely to be correct. Logically they are all professionals with a much more intimate and indepth knowledge of the players and the strategies for the games.

What seems much more likely is that England just played a bit better than the Wobblies and won 3 reasonably close games.

 

[Lee Enfield]

Quade on the bench. Doesn't qualify. Throws Phipps away in favour of two Queenslanders when Stirzaker is the clear next choice.

What's not to deride about that?

If i was concerned about the opinions of some of the peanuts here, I wouldn't bother posting. If they don't want my derision, they can stop posting rubbish.

Quade on the bench is subject to eligibility, which was mentioned. As for you derision based on picking Genia or Frisby in lieu of Phipps instead of Stirzaker, cause he is the clear next choice....... bahahahahaha. You should go look in the mirror and deride yourself. Clearly he is not considered the clear next best choice by your beloved ex waratah coach. Genia is a much more complete 9 then Phipps.
But by all means let's change nothing, let's not try different options and instead keep trying the same thing but doing it better, caused that has worked out so well.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Quade on the bench. Doesn't qualify. Throws Phipps away in favour of two Queenslanders when Stirzaker is the clear next choice.

What's not to deride about that?

If i was concerned about the opinions of some of the peanuts here, I wouldn't bother posting. If they don't want my derision, they can stop posting rubbish.

Think you would be a very lonely person thinking Stirzaker is better than Frisby atm, Pfitzy. Form just does not back up your contention.

 

[Brumby Runner]

In the washup to a 3 - 0 whitewash at home, I defy anyone now to defend the selections of Horne, Skelton and Palu. And before I get accused by raving Tahs' fans, I am not advocating Brumbies specifically to replace them.

I really think Nabuli (REDS) should have been given a chance until someone like Tomane is back fit again.

The second row is looking pretty good to me with Coleman and Arnold coming through to back up Simmons, Horwill and Carter. Staniforth will also come to the top with more Super rugby behind him.

No 8 has to be Holloway when back from injury. In the meantime, while Poey is out then McMahon did more than an adequate job last night.

Those three players should have donned the Wallabies' jersey for the last time. Others in doubt due consistent poor form are Moore, Phipps, Foley and Kuridrani.

Lots of potential there for big improvements come TRC.

 

[Viking]

Once again I was unimpressed with Cheika's post match interview.

Comments were basically "we need to be more clinical" - stating he will not stray away from his strategy because "it works, it has in the past". Blaming100% on inaccuracies instead of any acknowledgement at all that poor strategy could have led to those inaccuracies.

Lots of discussion around ref decisions too.

 

[Viking]

In the washup to a 3 - 0 whitewash at home, I defy anyone now to defend the selections of Horne, Skelton and Palu. And before I get accused by raving Tahs' fans, I am not advocating Brumbies specifically to replace them.

I really think Nabuli (REDS) should have been given a chance until someone like Tomane is back fit again.

The second row is looking pretty good to me with Coleman and Arnold coming through to back up Simmons, Horwill and Carter. Staniforth will also come to the top with more Super rugby behind him.

No 8 has to be Holloway when back from injury. In the meantime, while Poey is out then McMahon did more than an adequate job last night.

Those three players should have donned the Wallabies' jersey for the last time. Others in doubt due consistent poor form are Moore, Phipps, Foley and Kuridrani.

Lots of potential there for big improvements come TRC.

To be fair. Nabuli has barely one season of super xv under his belt and the rest of our wingers are injured or unavailable.

Horne is shit, but he was basically the last man standing. The rest are all complete rookies, and their were enough rookies in the squad already.

I'm certainly surprised the other wingers (Morahan, Naiya) didn't get more game time off the bench though.

 

[The torpedo]

In the washup to a 3 - 0 whitewash at home, I defy anyone now to defend the selections of Horne, Skelton and Palu. And before I get accused by raving Tahs' fans, I am not advocating Brumbies specifically to replace them.

I really think Nabuli (REDS) should have been given a chance until someone like Tomane is back fit again.

The second row is looking pretty good to me with Coleman and Arnold coming through to back up Simmons, Horwill and Carter. Staniforth will also come to the top with more Super rugby behind him.

No 8 has to be Holloway when back from injury. In the meantime, while Poey is out then McMahon did more than an adequate job last night.

Those three players should have donned the Wallabies' jersey for the last time. Others in doubt due consistent poor form are Moore, Phipps, Foley and Kuridrani.

Lots of potential there for big improvements come TRC.

Tomane will be back soon IIRC

 

[Twoilms]

Isn't Moore far too old to make it to the next RWC? I understand you put your best team out in every test but surely we need a captain who will make it to the next WC.

 

[Mr Doug]

For me, it was a "Tale of Two Coaches".
One treated the match as 'a dead rubber' and 'a trial for the Bledisloe Cup', the other treated the match as 'a Rugby World Cup final'.

 

[barbarian]

Ah yes, in a 3-0 whitewash the real lesson is we need to boot out two blokes who played 30 and 50 minutes of game 3.

Fuck me dead. If that's what you take away then seriously you need your head checked.

I don't think any of the three played well, but neither did they cost us the game.

Dropping those guys might make a lot of keyboard warriors feel better, but it won't change our results.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cyclopath]

In the washup to a 3 - 0 whitewash at home, I defy anyone now to defend the selections of Horne, Skelton and Palu. And before I get accused by raving Tahs' fans, I am not advocating Brumbies specifically to replace them.

I really think Nabuli (REDS) should have been given a chance until someone like Tomane is back fit again.

The second row is looking pretty good to me with Coleman and Arnold coming through to back up Simmons, Horwill and Carter. Staniforth will also come to the top with more Super rugby behind him.

No 8 has to be Holloway when back from injury. In the meantime, while Poey is out then McMahon did more than an adequate job last night.

Those three players should have donned the Wallabies' jersey for the last time. Others in doubt due consistent poor form are Moore, Phipps, Foley and Kuridrani.

Lots of potential there for big improvements come TRC.

If I disagree with you, does that mean I'm raving? You try to position yourself as the fount of impartiality and write shit like this.
Horne is doing a job, and is hardly anywhere close to the reason we lost. An easy target for people to whine about while overlooking the real issues. Obviously if we had a full rack of wings to choose from, he probably wouldn't be there. I honestly can't see why people bitch about him though.
Palu probably only there by virtue of lack of options, and I think would have been better starting, then having McMahon after 30-35mins, rather than bringing him on later. Moot point if Pocock wasn't injured.
I don't think the second row is going that well - undecided on combos, scrum iffy at times, and a lot of that comes back to the effectiveness of the locks. Lineout has been scratchy too, apparently little of it is Moore's fault if you read much of this thread (no, not you before you go off again). Bloke behind us at the game seemed to think Skelton was fucking up all the lineouts, despite neither calling nor throwing them. Sure we have a lot of lock "options" but hardly a combo that would worry NZ or SA as yet.
I think our attack looked much better with Foley / To'omua, though for the life of me I couldn't work out what was going on with the touch kicking, as I stated earlier. Neither seemed intent on finding touch, which seems an odd strategy.
Disregarding whoever might be flying in for TRC, out of the currently available, eligible and non-injured backs, I would pick Phipps, Foley, To'omua, Kerevi with DHP and some other winger (I don't think it makes a massive difference - could be Morahan, Nabuli, Horne) and Folau. Our attack doesn't suck - we scored 5 tries, yet so much complaining about the backs.
If we're getting the players back that the papers are touting, I think we'll see Phipps or Genia, Foley or To'omua, Giteau, Kerevi, DHP, AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) and Folau. A pretty solid line-up I reckon.
The forwards, where we are really losing it, is a tougher choice. I'll leave that to someone with a thicker neck. As well as McMahon played, I don't think that is the 8 option for us longer term, but equally it seems Cheika does not think Holloway is either. Maybe it's Houston?

 

[Juan Cote]

Some of Cheika's selections were difficult to understand; the in and out of Simmons and Sio, then Carter and Arnold and back again made no sense.

Worse still was the selection of Skelton who had no form whatsoever, and with both Mumm and Horwill sitting in the stands, was a massive error.

Despite some opinion the Wallabies were close this series, they weren't. They were totally outclassed in Brisbane, humbled in Melb and well beaten in Sydney.

Cheika fucked this one up with his selections and tactics.

 

[TOCC]

Ah yes, in a 3-0 whitewash the real lesson is we need to boot out two blokes who played 30 and 50 minutes of game 3.

Fuck me dead. If that's what you take away then seriously you need your head checked.

I don't think any of the three played well, but neither did they cost us the game.

Dropping those guys might make a lot of keyboard warriors feel better, but it won't change our results.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Skeltons selection had a butterfly effect, his inability to play 80mins due to fitness is a liability to the team, I'm sure Cheika went in with the intent to have Simmons play 80 and Coleman sub on for Skelton at the 50min mark, but Simmons getting injured meant Cheika was forced to sub Skelton and move Fardy into second row. That destabilised the scrum and the line-out, that cost the Wallabies on the scoreboard.

I'm not blaming Skelton for that, he should never have been selected, that is Cheikas fault, he took a gamble and it didn't pay off.


As for Palu, I don't see who the other options are, if Ita Vaea hasn't been forced into retirement then I think he would have been considered, but there aren't many other number 8 candidates currently in Oz.

 

[gel]

This thread is shocking.

 

[Scotty]

You can have any opinion you wish, but that one looks very unlikely to be correct. Logically they are all professionals with a much more intimate and indepth knowledge of the players and the strategies for the games.

What seems much more likely is that England just played a bit better than the Wobblies and won 3 reasonably close games.

It was clear they played better.

The question then goes to - why do you think they played better?

 

[gel]

This thread is shocking.

And then I read the front page article and it is even worse.

 

[liquor box]

Isn't Moore far too old to make it to the next RWC? I understand you put your best team out in every test but surely we need a captain who will make it to the next WC.

I think Ready should be on the Bench for the rest of the years Test Matches.

My crystal ball shows he will be playing at the next world cup and with Moores drop in from I would say they are equal players at the moment.

If you can't win you have to build for the future.

I would hate to be the Reds selector next season, hooker is going to be an interesting selection.

 

[Scotty]

Ah yes, in a 3-0 whitewash the real lesson is we need to boot out two blokes who played 30 and 50 minutes of game 3.

Fuck me dead. If that's what you take away then seriously you need your head checked.

I don't think any of the three played well, but neither did they cost us the game.

Dropping those guys might make a lot of keyboard warriors feel better, but it won't change our results.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

While I don't agree with BR with respect to Horne, the other two at least are the symptoms of why we lost 3-0. They are symptoms of the cause being either a) poor selections that aren't well thought through or b) a coach that is just trialling players with less emphasis on winning the game.

And I still haven't seen anyone give a good explanation why Foley and Phipps played a full 80 minutes after repeated errors.

 

[Gnostic]

For mine the attack has been effective at times but very predictable. It relies totally on quick front foot ball. The pigs were able to achieve that at times in the first and third tests but in the second test they didn't gain anything and the attack was much as the Brumbies attack has been all year (barring first game). Rugby league like one out runners rarely breaking the set defence.

As I said continuously for years, the Wallabies seeming obsession with this false idea of what constitutes running rugby is really holding the game and players back. The lack of any effective kicking game from the Wallabies means that they are totally predictable. This is because we have close to zero effective kickers in the country. Foley, To'omua and DHP can kick, Foley showed in the RWC last year and the Super competition in 2014 he can kick very well from hand and tee and consistently so. WHy then does his technique appear to have gone to total shit this year? Yes he has been at times inconsistent in the past, but this year he has been consistent only in poorness of his execution. Why. I do not accept that if a player can display a kicking game such as the RWC pool game against England and others of similar quality he does not have the basic skills that can be honed and improved.

IMO this aspect of the Wallabies, the kicking from tee and hand is what lost the series. Just assess Farrell's conversion rate from the tee and Foley's. If the Wallabies convert at the same ratio in tests 1 and 3 the series is won without even addressing the other issues with selection and inaccuracy.

I am not arguing that selections as raised by others was not an issue, or the error rate with the ball in hand, or the tactics. They all played a part, but I think the lack of a truly balanced rugby game plan comes back to the inability of any Australian back to kick effectively and consistently and this plays into the other aspects of how they play and how they select.

IMO Chieka has made a massive mistake right from the start of his coaching career in not having a proven full time kicking coach. I was willing to give Malone the benefit of the doubt in this respect, but two missed penalties for touch in two games with the same basic error in Foley's set up coupled with the decline in the accuracy and execution of his place kicking tells me the juries back in on the outcomes of his mentoring.

 

[barbarian]

Skeltons selection had a butterfly effect, his inability to play 80mins due to fitness is a liability to the team, I'm sure Cheika went in with the intent to have Simmons play 80 and Coleman sub on for Skelton at the 50min mark, but Simmons getting injured meant Cheika was forced to sub Skelton and move Fardy into second row. That destabilised the scrum and the line-out, that cost the Wallabies on the scoreboard.
.

Yeah I don't think it was a good selection. No arguments from me there.

What I do hate is the peanut gallery heaping all this blame on him for what happened. We are so desperate for easy answers, and this generally ends up as 'If only Skelton wasn't so shit, we would win'. Or sub in Palu, or Horne, or Foley, or Phipps.

The problem is this series hasn't been like that. It's complex, and boiling it down to individual selections and performances is stupid. There are issues across our whole game that have contributed.

So it does annoy me (though doesn't surprise me) to see the same old suspects on here bleating about Skelton and Palu, as if they were the reason we lost 3-0.
.