I want to float a problem that may force people to look past the simple answers that everyone pulls out of their back pocket when you get a performance like last Friday.
Angus Ta'avao:
Everyone knows he's shit, he's always been shit. Last season he started for the Tahs and the scrum was diabolical, worst its ever been. First start he gets this year and the whole scenario is repeated. Last year that led to the meteoric rise of Tom Robertson.
But then last year he was a significant part of the scrum at the back end of the game against the Stormers that won a memorable tight head. In the second half of last season, up till the international break, he was not shit.
Why? And if he wasn't shit then, why do people say he's shit now?
A few years ago I watched the Tahs train under Cheika. It was brutal. They were going at it 110% and it was only training. But the point was that they trained at match level intensity and as a result, when it came to matches, they were able to dominate the collisions. The pack largely played like a NZ pack. The backline was still running flat out after 80. (And spare me the Potgieter love, one man does not make a pack).
On the evidence of Friday, that is no longer happening. How a Kiwi, brought up in Canterbury, could let that happen is bewildering.
A second observation:
Will Miller, the Norths captain, just started his first game for the Rebels as an emergency replacement and was an absolute star. Four turnovers, including the match leveller. No Australian franchise picked him up, despite his play in Shute. How did we choose our backrowers and leave him out? He should have been our back-up 7 and Michael Hooper should not be playing every minute of every game. That's perplexing, and just doesn't fit the objective; that we should try to contract the best possible squad available for this year.
What the answer is I don't fully know - I'm just an armchair critic. But the answer is infinitely more complex than "sack the coach", though that probably has to happen now. The rot set in when too many players were chosen for the EOYT and didn't have a proper pre-season. They sure don't look match-hardened now and we are nine rounds into the comp.