Waratahs 2012

[qwerty51]

You can't just say the Tahs are crap because of one performance. Last week they went to Dunedin and lost by 1 point, played well enough to win the game. The Highlanders look the best team in the comp and it was a fair performance. This week the performance sucked, yeah but it doesn't represent the team over the season or their potential.

 

[Ruggo]

The kindest thing that could happen to the Tahs quite frankly is a towling from the sharks next week. A win will just serve to mask up the lingering problems that badly need to be addressed.

 

[Gnostic]

You can't just say the Tahs are crap because of one performance. Last week they went to Dunedin and lost by 1 point, played well enough to win the game. The Highlanders look the best team in the comp and it was a fair performance. This week the performance sucked, yeah but it doesn't represent the team over the season or their potential.

Why just look at this season? This is essentially the core of the team that has put in the same performances as this for the last 3 or 4 years. I seem to remember the same arguments being raised against me when I said the same things last year. Look at the post I made above and dispute the assertions made there.

 

[qwerty51]

You've completely ignored what they've achieved over the last few seasons, that of a top 6 team. You're making out as if they're low achievers which simply isn't true. There's only 3 sides that you could say have achieved more than the Tahs over the past 3 seasons.

 

[cyclopath]

You can't just say the Tahs are crap because of one performance. Last week they went to Dunedin and lost by 1 point, played well enough to win the game. The Highlanders look the best team in the comp and it was a fair performance. This week the performance sucked, yeah but it doesn't represent the team over the season or their potential.

Sure they played well last week. But they lapse to these terribly sub-standard performances too often to be a contending team. It is a cancer in the organisation that needs to be removed. No team will be perfect, of course, but they should rightfully be criticised for that. The default under pressure is to revert to a game that repeatedly fails. They do not learn. It is either ingrained in the players, or written on a stone tablet in the shape of Phil Waugh's head in the dressing room.

 

[Gnostic]

You've completely ignored what they've achieved over the last few seasons, that of a top 6 team. You're making out as if they're low achievers which simply isn't true. There's only 3 sides that you could say have achieved more than the Tahs over the past 3 seasons.

You completely ignore that this side contains more Wallaby players than any other in Oz over the period I named. It would be rightly expected that a side containing such a concentration of talent be somewhere near the top of the table. What you fail to observe is the fcat that every year performances such as we saw tonight are served up, and not just once. As any poster from another province or better yet from SA or NZ and I will bet lefty that more than most would rate the Tahs as perenial underachievers given the talent at their disposal, in much the same way as the NZ posters bagged the Hurricanes for years.

 

[qwerty51]

The last two years half the Wallabies haven't even been available, can't have it both ways.

What performances are you referring to? Last year there were only 2 truly awful ones, the Cheetahs and Blues. Every team has them; the Reds had 2 last year.

 

[DPK]

Every team has them; the Reds had 2 last year.

If the Tahs aim to do as well as everyone else, they won't win the competition.

Do you think the Crusaders look at a poor performance and say "It's ok, everyone has bad days"?

 

[cyclopath]

But, qwerty, it is the way they lose those games, not the fact that losses happen, that is the issue. They are they same errors we see.
Well, I think so anyway.
The Reds seem to learn a bit better from theirs.

 

[qwerty51]

If the Tahs aim to do as well as everyone else, they won't win the competition.

Do you think the Crusaders look at a poor performance and say "It's ok, everyone has bad days"?

I'm not saying it's acceptable... I've said they need to address it.

 

[spectator]

As a neutral I would want Barnes at 10. Hangers is a solid player but his option taking is far too conservative when things are tight, or when the game needs to be taken by the scruff of the neck.

 

[mark_s]

We need to talk about Tpns throwing. He is still getting done for not straight a couple of times a game and it's a liability that we can keep carrying idefinitely. I also fear he is a marked man now in the same way al was at scrum time. Is it time to revert to someone other than the hooker throwing in?

 

[mark_s]

As a neutral I would want Barnes at 10. Hangers is a solid player but his option taking is far too conservative when things are tight, or when the game needs to be taken by the scruff of the neck.

Agreed. It was odd that foley took Carter out to bring barnes in when barnes to 10 seemed the logical thin.

 

[Badger]

With the resources and players the Tahs have had over the years, there should be at least one Super Rugby trophy in the cabinet....making the finals isn't good enough. Sure, there have been injuries in the last couple of years. But where are the game plans? There's plan A. Where's plan B, other than to kick?

Nothing is likely to change unless something drastic happens as with the Reds a few years ago with a cleanout of the management and board. However, as long as the Tahs finish mid table or above, the powers that be will probably think things are progressing swimmingly while the crowds and interest in the Tahs will continue to dwindle. You can't seriously expect casual fans to turn up to games after what was served up against the Force.

I spoke with a couple of people at the Force match who were at their first Tahs game....judging by their reaction, they won't be back anytime soon. For the rest of the season, I reckon it would have to be the quality of the opposition to draw the spectators in rather than the Tahs.

As they say, money talks and BS walks, so the falling gate receipts might also give the Tahs a wake up call to put up a decent show. At the rate it's going, we could see a sub 10,000 crowd soon.

 

[Sandpit Fan]

As a neutral I would want Barnes at 10. Hangers is a solid player but his option taking is far too conservative when things are tight, or when the game needs to be taken by the scruff of the neck.

Yep. The single incident which summed up the Tahs game today for me was when Barnes got the ball from a ruck and took off, trying to spark something, and threw that pass which sort of threaded the needle between all the other backs. Every one of them was standing still - no one running onto the ball. About that time I figured they were gone.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

With the resources and players the Tahs have had over the years, there should be at least one Super Rugby trophy in the cabinet....making the finals isn't good enough. Sure, there have been injuries in the last couple of years. But where are the game plans? There's plan A. Where's plan B, other than to kick?

Nothing is likely to change unless something drastic happens as with the Reds a few years ago with a cleanout of the management and board. However, as long as the Tahs finish mid table or above, the powers that be will probably think things are progressing swimmingly while the crowds and interest in the Tahs will continue to dwindle. You can't seriously expect casual fans to turn up to games after what was served up against the Force.

You are spot on about needing a clean out from top to bottom. They have an issue in terms of paying people out because they have no money.
They should make long term plans and stop looking to blokes like vickerman and Elsom to save them: thats a strategy for startup clubs, among its many problems.
Above all else they need to drop the arrogance: a fan day free for all for airing of grievances does not overcome an ingrained attitude of entitlement.
And before the tahs fans say that if the crowd doesn't turn up then it's a poor reflection on the crowd: that arguments worn out and wrong. Look at the reds crowds when they started winning!


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- Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Athilnaur]

It wasn't a flash game from the tahs, too much bad kicking, silly penalties, but I think some credit has to go to the Force for creating that pressure too. Great to see.

Barnes to 10 (judicious kicking as you've been doing at 12 please), TC in to give them some starch, or Hangers refinds his mojo.

Sent from my Razr using Tapatalk

 

[RedsHappy]

Whatever else is happening for the Tahs, crowds at SFS of c 14,000 etc are, if sustained, a very serious financial/business-viability issue for the NSW RU (and indirectly the hand-wringing observers at the ARU).

Bruce mentions this above, and we discussed it last year as post-Cheetahs this trend of low/mid teens '000 crowds started to harden up as the new lower base line. This level is at roughly that of the Rebels and Force's home games, but in Australia's largest city, and Australian rugby's largest state.

Something will need to done about crowd levels very soon or the death spiral of cost cuts yielding lowered play/player quality and weaker coaching depth, etc, etc, will inexorably start.

The issue is not as some think only wrt game income, it's sponsor motivation and a weakening cost-benefit proposition to them that's just as much an issue....if not more so.

 

[Gnostic]

RedsHappy correctly identifies the real hazards for the Tahs with another year as previous in the offing. Barring the rabidly die hard fan the vast majority of the Tahs fan base is disillusioned and disconnected with the Franchise now. They may or may not turn up or even watch the games, just take the falling crowds as an indicator of this. The Forum was a good idea but as was patently clear from the Coach's comments after that exercise it was more about placating the fans and then continuing what they were about.

Let me get one thing straight, I do not doubt at all the desire of the side to win, or their effort in most games. That is a shallow and immediate response to underperformance. No elite person rises to the pinnacle of their field without being driven to perform and a strong desire to win. My hypothesis last year in the "Tragedy of the Modern Tahs" was that there are systemic issues within the whole Tahs organisation that have results in successive coaches playing exactly the same game plans and achieving the same results. Nothing at all changes in the Tahs from year to year no matter whose faces appear in Blue. How can that be the case. Is it on of or a combination of the following:-
1. The goals and measurable KPIs set by the board for the coaches and players being defective so that they encourage not outperformance but a meeting of those standards. Thus we would see a player or coach say I met these standards and so I was successful in meeting the management goals and disregarding the ultimate aim of winning because of this.
2. Do these KPIs determine that the Tahs will seek to minimise the chances of losing instead of seeking to maximise the chances of winning. This is a dangerous mindset as if they fall behind in the final minutes heads will drop and effort will either flag or become frantic and undirected (Hangers defence and Barnes pass to nobody respectively).
3. Further do these KPIs drive selection and recuitment.
4. Short term recruiting, some can be accepted but I would suggest not more than one or two of the squad. It isn't new. How many long term injured players have the Tahs recruited whilst they have been injured and worse players who haven't played for some time at the highest level bearing in mind the injured players they already had contracted?
5. The Fan forum demonstrated a deep seated arrogance and "take what you get" attitude from the Tahs last year as has already been discussed at length. This attitude will not win new fans, it will not keep wavering fans and it will slowly erode the remaining fan base until only the "blind Patriots" that RedsHappy has referred to in the past are left. Such fans while admirable in their passion for their team will not pay the bills.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

RedsHappy correctly identifies the real hazards for the Tahs with another year as previous in the offing. Barring the rabidly die hard fan the vast majority of the Tahs fan base is disillusioned and disconnected with the Franchise now. They may or may not turn up or even watch the games, just take the falling crowds as an indicator of this. The Forum was a good idea but as was patently clear from the Coach's comments after that exercise it was more about placating the fans and then continuing what they were about.

Let me get one thing straight, I do not doubt at all the desire of the side to win, or their effort in most games. That is a shallow and immediate response to underperformance. No elite person rises to the pinnacle of their field without being driven to perform and a strong desire to win. My hypothesis last year in the "Tragedy of the Modern Tahs" was that there are systemic issues within the whole Tahs organisation that have results in successive coaches playing exactly the same game plans and achieving the same results. Nothing at all changes in the Tahs from year to year no matter whose faces appear in Blue. How can that be the case. Is it on of or a combination of the following:-
1. The goals and measurable KPIs set by the board for the coaches and players being defective so that they encourage not outperformance but a meeting of those standards. Thus we would see a player or coach say I met these standards and so I was successful in meeting the management goals and disregarding the ultimate aim of winning because of this.
2. Do these KPIs determine that the Tahs will seek to minimise the chances of losing instead of seeking to maximise the chances of winning. This is a dangerous mindset as if they fall behind in the final minutes heads will drop and effort will either flag or become frantic and undirected (Hangers defence and Barnes pass to nobody respectively).
3. Further do these KPIs drive selection and recuitment.
4. Short term recruiting, some can be accepted but I would suggest not more than one or two of the squad. It isn't new. How many long term injured players have the Tahs recruited whilst they have been injured and worse players who haven't played for some time at the highest level bearing in mind the injured players they already had contracted?
5. The Fan forum demonstrated a deep seated arrogance and "take what you get" attitude from the Tahs last year as has already been discussed at length. This attitude will not win new fans, it will not keep wavering fans and it will slowly erode the remaining fan base until only the "blind Patriots" that RedsHappy has referred to in the past are left. Such fans while admirable in their passion for their team will not pay the bills.

Completely and utterly spot fucking on - "like" does not do my reaction justice.