Can you and gnostic pull the plug on the broken record. Face the facts deans is not going to be sacked before the rwc. Chances are if we don't make it to the final he will be moved on afterwards so let's wait and see....He is not the sole reason why the wallabies aren't world number 1. That starts a lot deeper down than the wallaby coach. Take the performance of our provincial sides as an example.
Certainly not, just because you request it and it doesn't suit your personal likes or analysis of Wallaby core problems. What would give me the right to attempt to gain some sort of editorial influence over your inputs and 'favourite themes', just because I deemed them of less relevance than my own? One can tell Scotty from your politics, NBN, and similar posts that you are an assertive person, I respect that, but you must grant others freedoms identical to your own or people may suspect intellectual bullying tainted with arrogance, instead of democratic genuineness.
I know that the parties that admire and are adherents of Deans (and their loyalty is near unbounded I have found) will find my and Gnostic's assessments disagreeable, and some have even gone to lengths to remind us that we are not elite rugby coaches, so what would we know?
Yet the true 'broken record' here is in fact not our voices - rather, it is the repetitive deficiencies in coaching and selection - general and specialist in nature - that are driving major, repetitive elements of Wallaby inconsistency, mediocrity and blindness to their origins. The appalling repetitive inconsistency of Wallabies' game results, the consistent lapses against weaker teams, the volatility of crucial core skills (e.g. kicking), the repetitive perseverance with players that clearly are not correctly positioned or selected, the regular evidence of poor core skills (e.g. correct body height in forwards' attack and tackling), high intensity one game, low the next, the lack of '80 mins of hard team composure and mental strength', the list of chronic and continuing elements of such game-losing kind goes on. And most of these have been there on and off since 2008. (We even have the ludicrous situation where today Deans is quoted as stating, effectively, that his team was not correctly mentally prepared for the Auckland game, and didn't apply themselves or their desired tactics correctly. Does he carry no responsibility for this in relation to a crucial match, after 2 solid weeks of allegedly intense training on the Gold Coast, and 3+ seasons of competing with the ABs? And what of all the chest-beating PR re 'the new young Wallabies' the ARU and Deans openly engendered before the match?)
That is the real 'broken record'. That is the real shame, that's what's driving much angst and the increasing calls for change.
Finally, whilst my and Gnostic's assessments grate, do you somewhere believe that an endless discussion of 'forward x is better than forward y', and the subtleties of scrum dynamics, is something that elite players and coaches tune into each week and gain profound revelations from, as though it is so much more intellectually valuable here than a critique(s) of our coaching capability? Surely, there is a place for both here, and much more.
