I want floodgates. I want a 40 pointer. I want a performance that says, “Yeah, we’re ready to take on the All Blacks and beat them!”, and not just in Brisbane or Honkers either. I want to see the Wallabies start the game at full throttle and keep redlining it for the entirety.
That’s what I want, but sadly, I don’t think that’s what I’ll get.
We’ve already heard the pre-fabricated excuses being mouthed since seemingly every second professional player in Australia was named in the Wallaby training squad. It’s the same every year, limited preparation, injuries and new combinations will all conspire to make the game a difficult one.
Even the scheduling of the game is being wheeled out as a potential excuse. That one is hard to fathom as presumably it was the ARU who decided to play the Test on a Tuesday night in the first place.
Well I’m sick of it!
Instead of making pre-game excuses as to why the Wallabies won’t dominate the Jocks, we should be expecting and demanding a dominant performance.
Imagine if it were the All Blacks playing Scotland on Tuesday night, what would we all be thinking? One thought, carve up!! There is no way we’d be saying, “Gee, they’ve had a limited preparation and a few injuries, this might be closer than we think.”
That’s the chasm between the All Blacks and the Wallabies. In New Zealand there is the expectation that every test the All Blacks play they’ll win, and win well. The supporters, the TV commentators and the print media all have the same attitude.
It creates the pressurised environment where team performances must meet expectation or those involved are savaged and criticised until they are either put out to pasture or make the grade.
Not so in Australia. Sure we might jump on a rugby forum and fire off a nastygram, or huddle in small circles and talk of sedition, but that’s about it. Maybe the odd commentator or journo might take issue with an aspect of a performance, but there is never a full frontal assault.
As a rugby nation we’ve been dumbed down. We are now starting to expect sub-par performances, and to a large extent, we accept that’s just the way of things.
So that’s it, enough of the negativity, the Wallabies are playing the twelfth placed rugby nation on Tuesday night (even the Italians are above them) and we should hammer them.
If we don’t then questions have to start being asked, starting with the coach.
Deans has had this team for four years and the investment (and subsequent re-investment) the ARU has made in him is yet to a pay a dividend.
For all Deans’s success at provincial level, he has been nothing more than an average performer in the international arena. It’s a shame as there was so much goodwill when he started but as time has gone on, I think most us of are expecting a bit more than “play what’s in front of you.”
There’s even an excuse for Deans’s lack of international success, the old chestnut of “it’s because we play the Saffers and All Blacks so often”. That maybe so, but it doesn’t explain away the other ponderous losses we’ve had to endure in recent years.
This season should be about Deans delivering.
Over the past four years we’ve had senior players that have been held responsible for losses and every year it seems one or more members of the coaching staff are moved on. All through this period it is Deans who has been a constant.
In the early days of Deans’s appointment the goals were simple and clearly stated – firmly in the Wallaby sights were the Bledisloe Cup, the Tri-Nations and ultimately, the World Cup.
It hasn’t turned out that way as the Wallabies have only managed one of these trophies, last year’s abridged Tri-nations.
As I said earlier, this year is about Deans delivering. He needs to be held responsible and accountable for Wallaby performances, something that up until now he hasn’t been.
The equation is simple, if the Wallaby performances during the domestic test season aren’t of a standard to make us the number one rugby nation in the world, Deans should be sacked.
