As I postualted on the previous page the Tahs have consistantly selected the wrong people or have done something to degrade the quality of good ones they get ala Barnes.
For instance in 2009 when the Reds played the Stormers Barnes kicked the crap out of them with accurate raking kicks and pinned them in their own half. Fast forward to 2012 and Barnes kicks were innefectual and aimless. as I posted in the game thread 7% were effective kicks in the first half and a massive 32% in the second from my reckoning. Check the game thread for my stats and how I came to assess them.
My point is the Tahs obviously went in with a conservative game plan to kick the Stormers into submission, which is fine if you have the players to do it. On the evidence that we have seen for the last ....... year the Tahs do not have either the players for this game plan or the execution or possibly both. On the last page I suggested that the Tahs have a fixation with selecting "attacking/running" players or players that are perceived as being of this type. They then impose a "conservative/kicking" game on these players and so many then bemoan the "kicking" game of the Tahs. We should be voiciferously denoucing the lack of quality execution and the selection of the wrong players. On the last page I posted two players in the last 5-6 years that have gone overseas without ever getting a look at the Tahs despite dominating, totally, the Shute Shield. Chris Malone and Dan Parkes. Both players were rightly seen as conservative kicking type 10s, though instances can be shown of them effectively running the ball. IMO just what the Tahs need at 10 if they want to play a kick and dominate game plan. Instead the Tahs for years have selected "running" types (or those perceived as running types) perhaps due to public/board pressure and then imposed the conservative game which they do not execute well.
It isn't just in the 10s that the problem resides, the selection of the whole side from the very start has to be questioned. Where are the effective chasers like Bryan Habana for instance. The Tahs rarely chase effectively, they did against the stormers on one occassion, for a turnover to AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper). A second resulting in a penalty could be argued but Habana had a brain snap and hesitated instead of kicking or offloading the bal andgot himself isolated instead of taking either of the former options which he had plenty of time to do so.
Have a very quick look at the other franchises and you will see a plethora of players that the Tahs overlooked to sign big names, players who have excelled and in some cases truly played themseleves into test contention (if anybody but Mad Robbie was selecting). Names like Pyle, Neville, Jones, Batye, White, Phipps, even Sheehan, Inman. Where are our young uns coming through as others have asked? Where is Peterson - same age as Batye and more experienced in terms of Super training than any of those previsouly mentioned who are shining. Other players have excelled after leaving the Tahs playing far better than they ever did in the selected position, and here I will name Sidey and Palmer (though great wraps were given him for his set peice work he has developed far more in the loose this year). I will also name Kurtley Beale as a far better player at the Rebels than he was at the Tahs. Simply because at the Rebels Beale has lost the tendancy to attempt everything himself and is looking like the player so many said he was. I will admit to being a very large doubter of him after so many years at the Tahs and so many aimless, low percentage chips and grubbers. In three weeks at the Rebels he has shown more than in 5 years at the Tahs.
The questions Tahs fans should be asking is WHY? Forget asking the coaches or the board I am totally convinced that both work to KPIs that will judge this year a qualified success, qualified by their unfortunate injury record (which will include Elsom and Vickerman who they signed knowing they were long term injured and had no runs on the board) and so many narrow losses. They miss the point, they have played like busted arses and, ignored all the great examples around them and have lost another year to change the direction of the Tahs. Instead we see the Brumbies and Rebels improving far beyond anything we have seen at a relatively stable Waratahs side over the same period. Again Tahs fans should ask why?
I think I have answered the questions myself in a few ways before and did so last year as well, and perhaps the year before that. I will not ramble further.
