Why aren't the Wallabies playing (and winning) like the Crusaders?

[Ruggo]

You know I used to think something similar. Not that Deans had a big head - he always came across as a very humble, hardworking guy. But rather that Deans was hogging virtually all the media attention and, by extention, depriving the players of ownership of their own performances. As if Robbie could do it all on his own. Rod MacQueen never got the kind of adulation which Deans enjoyed in 2008 - the lion's share of credit used to go to Eales and Horan and Gregan and the rest. I think this may explain the lapses in focus from Giteau and other leading players - maybe they haven't felt they would get the credit they deserve?

Welcome Newter

Great first post mate. I don't know if I agree with the above because Deans is always very loyal to his team in front of the media. I can never recall him throwing the players to the wolves. I agree with your first post but I think I know some of the answers to your questions.

1/ Deans has failed to acknowledge the tactical, structural style of Australian rugby. Maybe it needed to be wound back a bit but not totally discarded. The "play what's in front of you" style is very instinctive and it is generally not the way players have traditionally been coached in Australia.

2/ Although Robbie has been a very successful coach, he is not well travelled and has had his little niche in Christchurch. I don't think he was quite prepared for a different culture. His rival Graham Henry is well travelled and knows rugby from so many angles which is what has made him such a great coach.

When Robbie started I was looking for a blend of the old and the new in how we played. Our brains with a bit of NZ type aggression.

Robbie has done some good things though and I have not given up hope yet. I look forward to seeing a Cooper lead backline playing behind a full strength pack. I think we are a couple of big wins away from getting confidence and momentum to build on.

Hopefully this comes this weekend on the high veldt and a week later cracking the All Blacks.

 

[Newter]

Welcome, Newter. A very impressive initial post.

To me it is intriguing that the overwhelming majority of observers of our sport immediately discount the strength factor when analysing the reasons for teams' success or failure, as you have done above.

Since 2003 Ashley Jones has been Director of Physical Performance for the Crusaders. When asked what were the common mistakes made in athletic development programs Jones said:

"Ignoring the basics, the big rocks, which I believe are three: 1. Strength & Power 2. Speed 3. Specific metabolic conditioningAs Rusty Jones from the Buffalo Bills once said 'I get the team big, strong and fast and the head coach teaches them how to play the game.' That may be an oversimplification but I do not think it is too far away from the truth. Bottom line if these are not in place then anything else you do is irrelevant."

Is it possible to have a superior pre-season conditioning program these days? I know the Wallabies used to have an edge when rugby first went professional, but by now all the franchises and national set ups must be doing very much the same things in the gym and in training. Coaches move around and steal each others' ideas.

I don't notice much physical difference between David Pocock and Richie McCaw - only a skills difference. In fact some of our players are physically stronger than their opponents but not as skilfull, such as Drew Mitchell compared to Cory Jane.

 

[Scarfman]

The Wobs are as good at beating the man as any team in the world. It's just the team skills that are fucked.

How hard is it to attract a defender before you shovel it sideways? I could - literally - do that.

 

[Gagger]

Welcome, but you may as well leave now, you'll never live up to this first hit up.

I can say that from my observations Deans is the complete opposite of a media whore. At any press conference I've been to with him, he looks like he thinks someones about to jump out of the pack and stick him with a syringe of HIV. You can see the media manager constantly persuading him to come / stay. His amount of airtime to start with was more down to the public's fascination with the messiah and his employers wish to capitalise on it.

I'd hoped that the Dingo Bingo gobbledegook was a strategy to give the media some words when he quite clearly doesn't want to talk to them, but am not so sure any more.

PS - Scarfie a fine specimen like yourself, I can see how you attract defenders.

 

[WB3]

Welcome, but you may as well leave now, you'll never live up to this first hit up.

I can say that from my observations Deans is the complete opposite of a media whore. At any press conference I've been to with him, he looks like he thinks someones about to jump out of the pack and stick him with a syringe of HIV. You can see the media manager constantly persuading him to come / stay. His amount of airtime to start with was more down to the public's fascination with the messiah and his employers wish to capitalise on it.

I'd hoped that the Dingo Bingo gobbledegook was a strategy to give the media some words when he quite clearly doesn't want to talk to them, but am not so sure any more.

PS - Scarfie a fine specimen like yourself, I can see how you attract defenders.

I'm not sure he is saying Deans deliberately focuses media attention on himself, but perhaps a byproduct of the media's attention on him (and as I said, previous Wallaby coaches) is that the team feels a lack of ownership of their performances. I think it is a valid point, but that Deans deliberately hogs the spotlight; not so much.

 

[Newter]

I'm not sure he is saying Deans deliberately focuses media attention on himself, but perhaps a byproduct of the media's attention on him (and as I said, previous Wallaby coaches) is that the team feels a lack of ownership of their performances. I think it is a valid point, but that Deans deliberately hogs the spotlight; not so much.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

 

[Newter]

Welcome Newter

Great first post mate. I don't know if I agree with the above because Deans is always very loyal to his team in front of the media. I can never recall him throwing the players to the wolves. I agree with your first post but I think I know some of the answers to your questions.

1/ Deans has failed to acknowledge the tactical, structural style of Australian rugby. Maybe it needed to be wound back a bit but not totally discarded. The "play what's in front of you" style is very instinctive and it is generally not the way players have traditionally been coached in Australia.

2/ Although Robbie has been a very successful coach, he is not well travelled and has had his little niche in Christchurch. I don't think he was quite prepared for a different culture. His rival Graham Henry is well travelled and knows rugby from so many angles which is what has made him such a great coach.

When Robbie started I was looking for a blend of the old and the new in how we played. Our brains with a bit of NZ type aggression.

Robbie has done some good things though and I have not given up hope yet. I look forward to seeing a Cooper lead backline playing behind a full strength pack. I think we are a couple of big wins away from getting confidence and momentum to build on.

Hopefully this comes this weekend on the high veldt and a week later cracking the All Blacks.

You're probably right about the culture thing. It probably hasn't helped that Robbie cut or demoted some of the team's more popular members (Smith, Waugh, Mortlock, Tuqiri) in favour of more irritating personalities such as Barnes, Burgess and Elsom.

But the idea that Aus players will always flounder without structure and patterns doesn't excuse Deans, IMO. I thought the Reds played a lot of successful instinctive rugby this year. Other Aussie teams don't do it because they don't work on the catch/draw/pass skills, and I know it took a few seasons for Phil Mooney to drill that into the Reds players - but Robbie's had a few seasons now as well. Matt Giteau still can't draw and pass. Adam Ashley-Cooper barely ever lets the ball go.

If it's not happening now after two and a half years, why do we expect it to happen next year?

 

[Gnostic]

I thought the Reds played a traditional in depth support game. The ball was used quickly from the breakdown and everything was done up tempo. To say what they did was all instinctive and without a formal structure isn't correct. The players all played their positions. The easiest one to see this with is look at the differing role Ioane played when he played wing as opposed to 13.

The Reds this year had a very definite structure and I must say a very Randwick feel to some of their play.

 

[Scott Allen]

So that might have something to do with the fact that Ewan McKenzie and Jim McKay met each other all those years ago when playing together for Randwick.

Whilst the Reds might have looked unstructured, all of their attack was built on a base play. The coaches gave them this base play as the fallback and then encouraged them to have a go, always knowing they could come back to the base play. It might sound simple but it's actually brilliant what they managed to achieve.

 

[chief]

I can't sit idly by and watch a team which I used to love to watch come in and dissapoint the nation each week. Fact is I won't, and I'll continue not to. The Wallabies are now like the Reds were to me last year. I liked the Reds, but I didn't go out of my way to find out the score, or to watch the game. So JON's money loving tendencies can be thanked where people like me stopped caring all that much about the Wallabies, I didn't go to either Wallaby test in Brisbane because quite frankly I didn't really want to be there where I thought the Wallabies would lose. ARU is suffering financially because of people like me. From what I've heard the Sydney Bledisloe will attract less than 65,000 people. Only going to be less soon enough.

There's been speculation mounting that we may see Gary Flowers return to the post of CEO replacing O'Neill. O'Neill is the problem as well as Deans. I don't like to play the blaming game, but it's the continued selection of players who simply aren't doing it. Matt Giteau has never, ever experienced a winning culture like the Boks experienced during Tri-Nations 2009, and the AB's have experienced the greater part of this decade. To be frank none of these players have. Next year after the World Cup, I don't want to hear about what could have been. All I've been hearing is election quotes from Robbie Deans.

"We'll peak during WC"
"Developing a team"


I don't give a fuck, I want a team to win me games. This team isn't doing it because of Robbie's continued faith in people who just aren't getting the job done. Deans is the type of bloke who doesn't belong coaching this team, his neglect and idiocy in not selecting his bench I am sure has cost us games. Just get rid of him, put Ewen McKenzie in charge, so Australia can win. I will repeat that I will not stand by, and watch a team of people who are not up to the demands of test rugby.

 

[Slim 293]

I can't sit idly by and watch a team which I used to love to watch come in and dissapoint the nation each week. Fact is I won't, and I'll continue not to. The Wallabies are now like the Reds were to me last year. I liked the Reds, but I didn't go out of my way to find out the score, or to watch the game. So JON's money loving tendencies can be thanked where people like me stopped caring all that much about the Wallabies, I didn't go to either Wallaby test in Brisbane because quite frankly I didn't really want to be there where I thought the Wallabies would lose. ARU is suffering financially because of people like me. From what I've heard the Sydney Bledisloe will attract less than 65,000 people. Only going to be less soon enough.

There's been speculation mounting that we may see Gary Flowers return to the post of CEO replacing O'Neill. O'Neill is the problem as well as Deans. I don't like to play the blaming game, but it's the continued selection of players who simply aren't doing it. Matt Giteau has never, ever experienced a winning culture like the Boks experienced during Tri-Nations 2009, and the AB's have experienced the greater part of this decade. To be frank none of these players have. Next year after the World Cup, I don't want to hear about what could have been. All I've been hearing is election quotes from Robbie Deans.

"We'll peak during WC"
"Developing a team"


I don't give a fuck, I want a team to win me games. This team isn't doing it because of Robbie's continued faith in people who just aren't getting the job done. Deans is the type of bloke who doesn't belong coaching this team, his neglect and idiocy in not selecting his bench I am sure has cost us games. Just get rid of him, put Ewen McKenzie in charge, so Australia can win. I will repeat that I will not stand by, and watch a team of people who are not up to the demands of test rugby.

Giteau is the only player in the squad to have been a part of a championship team - 2004 Brumbies

 

[Bruce Ross]

Is it possible to have a superior pre-season conditioning program these days? I know the Wallabies used to have an edge when rugby first went professional, but by now all the franchises and national set ups must be doing very much the same things in the gym and in training. Coaches move around and steal each others' ideas.

I don't notice much physical difference between David Pocock and Richie McCaw - only a skills difference. In fact some of our players are physically stronger than their opponents but not as skilfull, such as Drew Mitchell compared to Cory Jane.

Newter, your assumption that "all the franchises and national set ups must be doing very much the same things in the gym and in training" is challenged by looking at the two strength and conditioning coaches with whom Robbie Deans has been associated in recent years; Ashley Jones at the Crusaders and Peter Harding with the Wallabies. As I mentioned above, Jones's approach is to get his players "big, strong and fast" whereas Harding seems to concentrate on aerobic fitness as exemplified by his use of GPS tracking in both training and actual matches. In the gym the Wallabies reportedly do no max strength work but focus heavily on bar-speed routines using loads as little as 30% of 1RM.

As a generalisation Australian professional rugby, influenced by rugby league practices, places much less emphasis on heavy strength training than any of the other top tier rugby playing nations. I think that at a time when there is almost universal dissatisfaction with the performances of our national team, the appropriateness of our physical conditioning merits examination.

 

[TheRiddler]

There's been speculation mounting that we may see Gary Flowers return to the post of CEO replacing O'Neill.

Yeah, that would be a great idea because Flowers did such an excellent job before. Wonderful player management, not to mention his fine accountants eye for matters fiscal - you may recall the ARU almost went bust during his tenure despite the RWC2003 legacy. Come to think of it, his media appearances were also straight out the Robbie Deans school of public speaking.

Please no....!!

 

[Harfish]

Just chiming in re: Ash Jones. He's one of the major reasons the Crusaders were so successful at Super 14 level because they had the ability to keep up the same intensity for 80 minutes. How many games did the Crusaders win with a score in the last 10 minutes? How often did they lose at the final hooter? Whatever his methods, Ash Jones played a bigger part in the success of the Crusaders than most realize.

I'm pretty sure Robbie tried to recruit him when he left Christchurch, he certainly took the video analyst and media manager with him. Is Matt MacIlraith still the media manager for the Wallabies?

 

[rookie]

Nice post Newter. I think most of the responses here identify very significant contributing factors, which taken together distinguish the Wallabies from the Deans coached Crusaders.

But I think there might be another way to look at this. It might be the case that the very attempt to reproduce the Crusader's style of play in the Australian context is the source of the problem. The Crusaders game was highly effective, but what if it built on an approach to rugby that is particular to New Zealand? A style of play centred on exceptional athletes, unstructured attack, a specific set of ball and breakdown skills, etc...

If this is close to the mark, then there a couple of obvious problems arise:

1) The Wallabies are playing a style of Rugby that is unfamilar - and which they're still coming to grips with;
2) They are forced to confront the All Blacks with a slightly, or significantly worse version of their own game. (Clearly the All Blacks don't play the exact Crusaders game plan, but there are enough overlaps with personel and generic NZ rugby traits for a general comparison).

When the Wallabies were last sucessful, it came not by out All Blacking the All Blacks, but by playing to our own quintessentially Australian style - one that emphaises cleverness, flexibility, strategic intent, multi-phase organisation, originality etc... Although every test is not against NZ, we've lost our way in all sorts of tests because we've gone away from the core values that have made us good in the past. Perhaps this is an identity crisis of sorts. Perhaps the Wallabies are awkward and clumsy, and can't quite get it right, because they're trying to be somthing they're not.

On this reading, Deans real failure is that he never understood what was good about Australian rugby. If he had, he might have been able to compliment these strengths with his Crusaders experience. Or perhaps he was always doomed from the start. In any case, the Wallabies have lost their point of difference and they won't win consistently again until they've got it back.

Anyways, this is just speculation, but there might be something to it.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Great post Rookie. I've long held the belief that we in Australia play a different style of game from most other countries and that only someone brought up in our rugby culture truly gets that. It was one of the reasons I had some misgivings around the hiring of Deans. Those were overridden somewhat by the recognition that there were few other candidates either up to the job or available.

 

[Mojoman]

Firstly, the Crusaders success took years to create, it's now cultural. Same with the Bulls who were the whipping boys of Super Rugby and have only just started to hit their straps the last few years. Robbie inherited most of his players and 2 years is not that long if you're talking rebuilding a team culturally.

Secondly, Robbie had some pretty fantastic players in key positions to call upon. Greg Somerville, Chris Jack, Brad Thorn, Richie McCaw, Justin Marshall, Dan Carter, Andrew Merhtens, Leon McDonald. All of these guys are or will be All Black greats.

Lastly is expectation. Robbie was never going to live up to the expectation that was set by the media. Expecting the same success as the Crusaders in a short time frame was never going to happen.

Robbie isn't a bad Coach, as much as the Wallabies aren't a bad team. Neither are in form at the moment but as we all know. Form is temporary. Just look @ the Boks of 2010 compared to 2009? Add to that the Wallaby injury list and while Robbie has a challenge to integrate those players into a mis-firing team next year it's not impossible.

 

[Ruggo]

Well said Mojoman.

 

[Gnostic]

Excerpt from GG's latest article.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...-or-forget-2011-world-cup-20100830-147fn.html

What irritates Deans most is that he cannot penalise the repeat offenders because the back-up is so shallow. Some are holding on to their Wallabies spots simply because there is no one else available for selection. But he warned that when Digby Ioane, Ben Alexander, James Horwill, Wycliff Palu, Tatafu Polota-Nau, Peter Hynes, Rob Horne, Dan Vickerman and Rod Davies again became available, he would not be sympathetic to those members of the squad in South Africa who failed to lift their standards over the next fortnight.

What is irritating to us is that he has persisted with the "back-up" players like Brown and Mumm for two years and allegedly first choice players who are now and have been out of form for a long time (Giteau). There are options that Deans has been wilfully blind to until forced by dazzling form (Cooper) or run of injury.

In any event the argument that those players named would make any difference to the side is pretty moot, they didn't last year when the Wallabies didn't have the injury toll they do this year, it was more a normal injury toll type season.

All the points that Greg raises in nearly every one of his collumns does not address the critical failing that the Wallabies are playing a 15 man version of League. One out runners into the defence with little set piece/move play to draw defenders and create gaps or mismatches. He does not question to atrocious basic skill levels the players display such the inability to pass the ball at pace and hit a support polayer also moving. FFS they have trouble passing the ball to the man standing still with it going high, low or behind the player on way to many occassions.

Surely the "Chief Rugby Correspondent" for the SMH could ask some testing questions of the management about these tings and report them.

All he would have to do is read G&GR to get some idea of the questions the die hard fans are asking.

Australian Rugby is in serious trouble, a few posters here who would fall into the Die hard category have admitted that they have little motivation to attend games and for the first time in 30 years I couldn't be bothered getting out of bed to watch the Wallabies live and settled on recording the game.

For mine it isn't the fact that we are losing, those who were around in the 80s will remember that wins were perhaps even harder to come by as we had less surety against the NH teams. It is the lack of any real game plan from the Wallabies and the total absence of any real traditional Australian Rugby from the team, that is the constrcuted plays, the flowing back line moves and the interplay between forwards and backs.

 

[Newter]

Newter, your assumption that "all the franchises and national set ups must be doing very much the same things in the gym and in training" is challenged by looking at the two strength and conditioning coaches with whom Robbie Deans has been associated in recent years; Ashley Jones at the Crusaders and Peter Harding with the Wallabies. As I mentioned above, Jones's approach is to get his players "big, strong and fast" whereas Harding seems to concentrate on aerobic fitness as exemplified by his use of GPS tracking in both training and actual matches. In the gym the Wallabies reportedly do no max strength work but focus heavily on bar-speed routines using loads as little as 30% of 1RM.

As a generalisation Australian professional rugby, influenced by rugby league practices, places much less emphasis on heavy strength training than any of the other top tier rugby playing nations. I think that at a time when there is almost universal dissatisfaction with the performances of our national team, the appropriateness of our physical conditioning merits examination.

I hadn't thought of that. I guess Robbie's trying to tailor the conditioning program to the Wallabies' new "constant ball in hand" style of play, which demands high aerobic fitness.