Aussie Pro Rugby
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@NTA What are your thoughts on David Begg? He's the head of the Sydney Rugby Union, the governing body for Sydney's 12 Shute Shield clubs. He joined the latest GAGR podcast for 20 odd minutes. He came across relatively well I thought, was obviously pushing the value of club rugby, but also acknowledged the need for everyone in Aus rugby to join together.
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I agree. Was pleasantly surprised by how upbeat he was about rugby and the ARU. Think he made a lot of very valid points and I liked his 'infrastructure fund' proposal. Wish it had been raised when things blew up last year, he's the type of reasonable voice we are lacking in club rugby...
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I think some positive thinking is required, but I also think Begg's pragmatism is built on the knowledge that Premier Rugby isn't going anywhere soon. As @barbarian says: wish we had a voice of reason when club rugby decided to attack the ARU and vice-versa last year.
Premier Rugby in Sydney and Brisbane has been the bedrock of Aussie Rugby for decades BUT it suffers deep flaws IMHO in its structure and simply doesn't have the depth or strength of competition these days to be more than a bit player.
By the time mid-season rolls around, and Super Rugby players start heading back to the big clubs, the competition is effectively over for any mid-table clubs. Parramatta and Penrith are kept on for lip service about supporting Western Sydney, but NSW Rugby and the ARU simply don't have a big enough pie to slice up that much.
Doesn't help that the attitudes of some people in club land (and Penrith in particular) is still basically amateur.
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@barbarian said in Aussie Rugby in general:
Will Skelton signs with Saracens for two years.
We just don't have the depth to cope with losing players of his ilk. There must be 20-30 players of his abilities in Europe right now.
Losing him isn't a huge blow in and of itself, but it adds up to such a toll that we just can't compete anymore.
And Ratturd never misses an opportunity to kick anyone when they are down . For a change he does offer solutions though and then goes Brokeback over Richie
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11832307
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general:
- When professional rugby came along, we had coaches like Macqueen who had already been treating the game professionally for years in the coaching ranks. That 1999 RWC winning side, through to the 2001 Lions series win, was based on factor 1 above in terms of talent, and the coach having adopted professionalism much earlier than the rest of world rugby. We basically had to: in terms of playing pool, we were struggling even then.
Legitimately curious as to what Macqueen was doing before the professional era that someone like John Hart wasn't.
Even the first wave of professional coaches like Nick Mallett had extensive pro experience in France, Henry coaching in Auckland/Blues was essentially a professional set up even though he kept his day job - the difference in his approach is shown pretty well in Living with the Dragons as early as 1997. Similarly Wayne Smith was in Italy pre professional era and doing cross code stuff with league and was on the fringes of the AB set up at the same time as Macqueen.
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@rotated I can't comment on Hart because I don't know enough about his career. I read Macqueen's book years ago.
Macqueen was a rugby player from very early on and then shifted into business before moving back into coaching. He brought a very business approach and was one of the first manager-coach types here, and probably in the world. Made the decisions, delegated work out, very corporate in his approach.
Metrics were a key aspect of this, and rather than just having a big talent pool to pick from, he had to make do with a small group of players (exceptional though they were in their own right) and get them working together to move things forward. It wasn't enough that you were skilled, you had to be willing to accept you needed to improve every aspect.
EDIT: one of the key things was his "grey decisions" belief. If you have one person making a decision, you either get black or white. If you have two people, you introduce a shade of grey. The more people, the more shades of grey.
Ideas end up diluted and the benefit is subsequently reduced.
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@rotated said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general:
- When professional rugby came along, we had coaches like Macqueen who had already been treating the game professionally for years in the coaching ranks. That 1999 RWC winning side, through to the 2001 Lions series win, was based on factor 1 above in terms of talent, and the coach having adopted professionalism much earlier than the rest of world rugby. We basically had to: in terms of playing pool, we were struggling even then.
Legitimately curious as to what Macqueen was doing before the professional era that someone like John Hart wasn't.
Macqueen won a world cup
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@SammyC said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@rotated said in Aussie Rugby in general:
.Legitimately curious as to what Macqueen was doing before the professional era that someone like John Hart wasn't.
Macqueen won a world cup
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@SammyC said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@rotated said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general:
- When professional rugby came along, we had coaches like Macqueen who had already been treating the game professionally for years in the coaching ranks. That 1999 RWC winning side, through to the 2001 Lions series win, was based on factor 1 above in terms of talent, and the coach having adopted professionalism much earlier than the rest of world rugby. We basically had to: in terms of playing pool, we were struggling even then.
Legitimately curious as to what Macqueen was doing before the professional era that someone like John Hart wasn't.
Macqueen won a world cup
Strictly speaking so did Hart as assistant to Sir BJ.
But as Assistant.
Macqueen did some great stuff obviously. Quite amazing what he fashioned from the leftovers at the Brumbies.
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@NTA said in Aussie Rugby in general:
@rotated I can't comment on Hart because I don't know enough about his career. I read Macqueen's book years ago.
Macqueen was a rugby player from very early on and then shifted into business before moving back into coaching. He brought a very business approach and was one of the first manager-coach types here, and probably in the world. Made the decisions, delegated work out, very corporate in his approach.
Metrics were a key aspect of this, and rather than just having a big talent pool to pick from, he had to make do with a small group of players (exceptional though they were in their own right) and get them working together to move things forward. It wasn't enough that you were skilled, you had to be willing to accept you needed to improve every aspect.
EDIT: one of the key things was his "grey decisions" belief. If you have one person making a decision, you either get black or white. If you have two people, you introduce a shade of grey. The more people, the more shades of grey.
Ideas end up diluted and the benefit is subsequently reduced.
Yeah he sounds very similar to Hart in that regard. Hart was head of personnel for one of New Zealand's largest companies between the RWC failure in 1991 and his appointment in 1995. He also was going up and down the country giving lectures and workshops on bringing corporate concepts into sports management. He already had that rep before 1991, if you look at the Grizz vs Hart debate Hart very much had the rep of a guy trying to bring unworkable concepts from the business world into rugby - at least from those down south.
The manager/coach point you make though is a good call. Hart still very much stayed a coach and surrounded himself with assistant selectors rather than assistant coaches like Macqueen - until 1998. It also felt like the leadership group had a much stronger say back then (hangover from amateur era?) and having Eales/Horan helped big time. Much easier to be the delegating type when you have quality guys to delegate to.
Strange though when it comes to having quality assistants, Macqueen taught everybody the lessons very early on but you still had/have guys like Deans and Cheika who seem ambivalent to recruiting quality assistants.
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@rotated said in Aussie Rugby in general:
Strange though when it comes to having quality assistants, Macqueen taught everybody the lessons very early on but you still had/have guys like Deans and Cheika who seem ambivalent to recruiting quality assistants.
Maybe its a case of taking what was left for Cheika? As I said earlier in the thread - we're not exactly drowning in experienced coaches.
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Sort of linked to your article on the other thread @NTA are Wallaby fans pining for a past that didn't really exist?
The Wallabies historical in percentage is about 51%. This is obviously a bit skewed by the pre 1980s, but since 1980, it's 62%. Pretty good right really? However there are some parts that really stand out, the absolute prime of Wallaby rugby teams: 84-86 (80% wins); 91-92 Wallabies (89%); and 98-2000 (83%). The rest of the time it's win a bit more than you lose. Which is good, especially given you play us 2-3 times a year, and the Saffers, who up until the last couple of years were pretty good. Yes, last year's test results weren't good, but you played the two best teams in the world 7 times, and were in nearly every game.
In Super rugby and Aussie team has won it 4 times, and been a losing finalist 6 times. Not bad, but that great Brumbies team makes up 2 of those wins, and 4 of those losing finals. There isn't a huge pedigree of Super rugby success there.
So while on the surface it looks like Aussie rugby has fallen in a hole, if you look at historical results, is it really that much worse than normal? Comparing everything to statistical peaks, and making that your benchmark is always going to make you feel worse. It doesn't help that at the moment your closest competitor is going through a sustained period of unheard of success (at test and Super level), but again, does that reflect the performance of Aussie rugby?
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@mariner4life partly that. When you have a generation of young blokes who grew up on Wallaby success, it becomes ingrained.
More worrying for me is not the losses, it's the method of losing.
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@NTA that's only if their entire memory is Gregan, Larkham and the 3 years at the turn of the century; or the Reds piston wristed gibbons old enough to crap on about the Queensland team of the early 90s.
That's not fair, guys our age can point to the vast majority of the 90s as a golden period. Some of the best players i have ever seen, playing brilliant rugby, winning two world cups, and generally being there or thereabouts as the best team in the world. And having those guys bringing the Brumbies to the top of the tree in Super Rugby too.
But that was a loooong time ago now.
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last year was 6-9, and of those losses, 3 were in single figures. A little luck and you turn those close losses in to wins, and your record for the year returns to "won a little more than we lost", or the usual.
I'm not trying to convince everything is roses, but i don't think it's as dire as it's being made out.
