Where to for Super Rugby?

[Braveheart81]

Not convinced.

The last two world cup finalists had what, 6 and 12? NZ have 5. Or is that those other nations just have more talent than we do?

In fact the last winners were the most dispersed with a lot of their players playing in Europe. Does cohesion need to be built at club level?

His take on that was that the core of the Springboks side was made up of current and former Stormers players (more than half the team that played the final were current or former Stormers so they were a very cohesive side).

England has low cohesion generally because they are spread among a lot of clubs but the cohesion of the England team at the RWC was good because they were very heavily focused from a couple of clubs (8 players in the final came from Saracens and 4 of the starting backline were Leicester players).

World Cups are also a bit different because they bring teams together for a long time. It's why traditionally non cohesive countries like France and formerly Argentina outperform at RWCs because it brings their players together for a long time and they get better whereas they never normally have that opportunity.

 

[Braveheart81]

So Ireland and Wales have 8 teams between them. Combined, aren't they around the same population as New South Wales?

Good thing NSW is overperforming already with just the one team.

Just having a bit of fun --- I don't think Aus can have 8-10 pro teams either.

TBH, I wouldn't be too bothered if WA dropped out of Australian Rugby - so long as we could get the same deal that Wales has and have our own test team.

East Coast can have their 4 teams, just like Ireland. Win-Win.

I'm not saying I agree with everything he said but that it is worth listening to. He does talk about the Australian teams and one of the major issues with the Waratahs is that they have gone from being a very cohesive team back in the day with low turnover of players to being very low on that metric (which he views as the most crucial to success).

None of the Australian teams rank highly on the cohesive metric.

 

[Derpus]

Well, most of the time the Wallabies come from the best two sides with a few others sprinkled in. But, guess ill listen before i comment further.

We certainly do have a penchant for knee jerk reactions, chopping and changing etc.

 

[Braveheart81]

Darwin concedes that while less teams is the best model for the wallabies there is no chance of any cut happening anymore.

Yeah, I agree with his point here that realities might force a change (cutting teams) that ultimately improves finances and results but you'll never make that choice without being forced to because of all the negatives that come with it.

It does seem like we need to work out a way to have less movement between our teams.

 

[Braveheart81]

Well, most of the time the Wallabies come from the best two sides with a few others sprinkled in. But, guess ill listen before i comment further.

We certainly do have a penchant for knee jerk reactions, chopping and changing etc.

I think the issue is that the cohesiveness of the sides they are coming from is also dropping relative to our competitors so the overall effect is that we are becoming less cohesive.

 

[Derpus]

Yeah, I agree with his point here that realities might force a change (cutting teams) that ultimately improves finances and results but you'll never make that choice without being forced to because of all the negatives that come with it.

It does seem like we need to work out a way to have less movement between our teams.

Longer contracts. Will piss a few folk off though.

 

[fatprop]

I thought is was interesting as he broke down the Ponies early success as the combining of so many randwick teammates who had played together from childhood

It does bring up interesting points as to the Wobs selections, the too many Tahs, Reads, Ponies etc is probably the right way to go, so if in doubt pick the combinations

and for players, stay in the good programs and wait, if you move you end up getting a few losing games and then going O/S earlier

 

[kiap]

No, and he makes the point that there are other paths to it. It's worth listening to the podcas

It is worth a listen.

However,

Jaguares improved significantly over their 4 years and the pumas were undone by relying on a foreign based fly half at the world cup.

The Argentina case needs stretching. They finished top four at the 2015 RWC Cup with Euro players and no Hag-warez.

After four years of Hags in the Supe and Pumas in RC, they go home early last year. But there's no way they were beating Eddie's Poms - and they got done by a five-try margin.

 

[Braveheart81]

The Argentina case needs stretching. They finished top four at the 2015 RWC Cup with Euro players and no Hag-warez.

After four years of Hags in the Supe and Pumas in RC, they go home early last year. But there's no way they were beating Eddie's Poms - and they got done by a five-try margin.

This was one of the ones where they improved at RWCs because they got a chance to bring their test side together for a longer period of time that they didn't normally get. They have had several RWCs where they outperformed relative to their world ranking.

The Jaguares sent the Pumas backwards because whilst it gave them greater cohesion having all their players from the one team, by barring overseas players they weakened their talent pool. Over time they improved but then in the 2019 RWC they suffered an injury at 10 and chose to bring in an overseas player with no cohesion and everything fell apart.

 

[Wilson]

he Argentina case needs stretching. They finished top four at the 2015 RWC Cup with Euro players and no Hag-warez.

After four years of Hags in the Supe and Pumas in RC, they go home early last year. But there's no way they were beating Eddie's Poms - and they got done by a five-try margin.

Sure, but there's a lot going on in a one off case that can distort things - one of the points he regularly makes is that while going down to one team at super level can greatly boost cohesion you are very exposed to injuries. There's also the point that most teams grow through the tournament in a world cup, as the nature of being in camp improves cohesion. End up in a pool of death and you may not have chance to get that cohesion before getting knocked out - England in 2015 might be an example of this.

 

[Dan54]

Was Zinzan Brooke an AB in 1993?

He must have been a bit shit because he started on the pine.

Transvaal: Theo van Rensburg, Pieter Hendriks, Bernard Fourie, Japie Mulder, Chris Dirks, Hennie le Roux, Johann Roux, Deon Lötter, Francois Pienaar (captain), Ian Macdonald, Kobus Wiese, Hannes Strydom, Johan le Roux, Uli Schmidt, Balie Swart

Auckland: Shane Howarth, Terry Wright, Eroni Clarke, Lee Stensness, Va’aiga Tuigamala, Grant Fox, Nu’uali’itia, Michael Jones, Brendan Jackson (replaced by Zinzan Brooke), Mark Carter, Robin Brooke, Richard Fromont, Olo Brown, Sean Fitzpatrick (captain), Craig Dowd

Yep but he would of probably only played once or twice in this comp, it was amateur days, and a hell of a lot of NZ players only played now and then and were still only training once a week. Most players couldn't really afford to be involved all the time because of cost, and the top ones tended to play a few games in this thing and am surprised Auckland even had that many on field at one time, generally were saved for important games. And you maybe right, Zinny was in ABs in 87 WC but was on outer in early 90s if I remember, think Fitzy talked Mains into taking him back into team in 94 or 95, where he was pretty good.

 

[Dan54]

The rugby ruckus podcast has a fantastic interview with Ben Darwin on the best model for aus and his analysis on cohesion from less teams and the number of players we will need to fill 5 teams and how that will affect the wobs

He has every chance of being accused of just trying to make the ABs stronger when KOB , dru etc read that.

Once again as KOB says it looking at it from an International flavour and not local, and it the old do we build from the top down etc etc , and where does finances come from . Think the more people's ideas we hear the more we will get confused.
And are we happy with Wallabies being down around 6-7 in world?

 

[kiap]

Zinny was in ABs in 87 WC but was on outer in early 90s if I remember, think Fitzy talked Mains into taking him back into team in 94 or 95, where he was pretty good.

Couldn't make the starting lineup in Super 10, Dan.

In a team that lost as well

 

[dru]

Ben Darwin: Quality analysis cogently argued. Impressive not only because of how rare that is in rugby.

Still...

If the Wallabies is your sole driver in design of rugby in Australia then I'd suggest that Darwinism is on the button. But you still need to build it from a successful and commercially sustainable second tier. Ben claims that it does - he had a lot to cover so it isn't surprising that he didn't dig into this as much as I would like. And I doubt muchly he doesn't have an analysis of it. Probably Wales + Scotland.

The problem here in Australia under an international Super comp it palpably has not been sustainable. Also Ben takes a view on whether or not reduction is saleable or feasible and immediately concludes no. So to argue whether is should or shouldn't is redundant

Wonderful question to him at the end - to paraphrase OK even if you don't like it with 5 teams in Aus with min 2 using PE/private ownership what is the best way forward?

He thought what we will get was 11th choice and they only modeled the first 10. Two issues he mentioned seemed to be no TT and no NRC. Well one of those we have control to fix. The other should be logical for all parties but takes two to tango. Leave the door open.

Cohesion wasn't simply incumbency (I think Ben used the term tenancy). It is also systems, pathways, coaching etc. There is no reason not tio introduce Darwinism into the planning.

All in all very impressive, but the first ball to kick is a successful commercially sustainable competition. Without that, nothing.

 

[dru]

He has every chance of being accused of just trying to make the ABs stronger when KOB , dru etc read that.

Once again as KOB says it looking at it from an International flavour and not local, and it the old do we build from the top down etc etc , and where does finances come from . Think the more people's ideas we hear the more we will get confused.
And are we happy with Wallabies being down around 6-7 in world?

Oh tosh. Ben isn't trying to make the ABs greater (though I bet he'd have a plan if you asked). NZR did that. Behaviour is different to quality analysis.

 

[Up the Guts]

I thought it was a fantastic podcast, but I wish they had gone deeper into other ways to improve the cohesion of the wallabies without cutting teams. Darwin concedes that while less teams is the best model for the wallabies there is no chance of any cut happening anymore. He briefly mentions the NRC positively a couple of times and talks about how 5 teams works for NZ in part because their teams all have relatively high cohesion.

It's that best path forward under a 5 team model that I think we need to focus on at this stage - are we best of with an NRC one level lower ensuring it's 1-2 teams feeding into super sides to maximize their cohesion? Does a State of the Union or similar 2 team series above super rugby help improve cohesion for the wallabies? How long/involved does it need to be to deliver here? Do we need to set hard participation targets in every region and value that growth as highly as (or higher than) wallaby success if we want to see success with this model?

I’ve never looked too deeply into Darwin’s work, how does he control for the fact that better teams make less changes in his analysis as opposed to less changes make better teams? It strikes me that there’s the potential for reverse causality in his research and I’d be interested to see how he nets this out.

 

[Derpus]

We have some pretty impressive rugby resources in Ben and Twiggy that are just begging to be tapped.

 

[Dan54]

Yep it still need to be very commercially sustainable if we are looking at not trying to build Wallabies. The bottom line seems to be that the International teams are the main money earner for all major rugby playing nations. And while we who are fixed on rugby men (and women) will happily go along to see a good domestic comp, I do believe that we need the big $s and profile etc that a successful test team will bring to help strengthen rugby. I not sure that can be done at below Test level in Australia where we talk about fighting the other codes. Do we perhaps need to look at out strengths, which is being an international game, and being near the top? Just random thoughts.

 

[Dan54]

Oh tosh. Ben isn't trying to make the ABs greater (though I bet he'd have a plan if you asked). NZR did that. Behaviour is different to quality analysis.

Well that certainly is what NZR should be doing, same as I would hope RA should be trying to make Wallabies stronger, and if they not god help us!

 

[Wilson]

I’ve never looked too deeply into Darwin’s work, how does he control for the fact that better teams make less changes in his analysis as opposed to less changes make better teams? It strikes me that there’s the potential for reverse causality in his research and I’d be interested to see how he nets this out.

Volume of data is a huge part of it. They've done a lot of analysis over a variety of competitions (and corporates, military, etc.) to produce this model - one of the things they noticed was coaches doing well with high cohesion models then did poorly with low cohesion teams, e.g. Craig Bellamy with the Storm vs Craig Bellamy with NSW origin. Also that succesful teams that made too many changes would see a drop in results.

One of his other favourites that isn't mentioned on the podcast is the effect changing jerseys has on cohesion - teams that change their strip significantly from one season to the next regularly suffer performance impacts as players get used to the new jerseys and have to rebuild some of those instincts they had developed around the old strip.

Talent is also very much still a factor - he talks about the overall measure being cohesion x talent, the focus is on cohesion because it's easier to measure and influence.

To be honest, I might not be the best person to defend his model, I'm still coming around to his way of thinking. This podcast has been a big part of that, describing the detail around it rather than just the buzz words of cohesion. Thankfully he's also really engaged on twitter and regularly responds to peoples questions around their modelling. If you've got specific questions I recommend asking them there or going through some of the older threads of his.