Aussie Pro Rugby
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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.
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@mariner4life said in Aussie Rugby in general:
I'm not trying to convince everything is roses, but i don't think it's as dire as it's being made out.
Wrong.
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@mariner4life said in Aussie Rugby in general:
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?
@mariner4life said in Aussie Rugby in general:
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?
Good calls. I have Graham Mourie's biography lying around somewhere and I remember him commenting about a crowd that was a good size "for a game against Australia". In other words, it's only quite recently that they've been considered a sustained threat and enemy no. 1.
My concern isn't so much with the Wallabies (although their success is obviously vital to the popularity of the game) but the state of the game in general. I went to Suncorp the other night with a mate who had season tickets during the glory years and up until last year. He told me the crowd used to cheer every time each player was introduced before a game. They were totally mute last week. People only need an excuse to flock to Suncorp but now they're staying away in droves.
I don't know what the silver bullet is but I do know that diluting the talent with 4 then 5 teams was a pretty stupid thing to do.
I'm also not convinced that the problem is with the schools. In my experience it was the club system and what comes after school that were the problems.
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The ruckman for North Melbourne was a junior rugby player. Big athletic unit and only 21. Holding on to those blokes is the challenge for the ARU
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Aussie Rugby in general:
I have Graham Mourie's biography lying around somewhere and I remember him commenting about a crowd that was a good size "for a game against Australia". In other words, it's only quite recently that they've been considered a sustained threat and enemy no. 1.They didn't beat us between 1949-1979, plus the Bledisloe Cup physically went AWOL for a decade was found and trotted out by the Aussies after they won and left a lot of NZ players actually wondering what it was.
Did a rivalry with Australia in sport exist at any meaningful level before the 1980s? It didn't really seem to start until we started competing and beating Australia in other sports like cricket, league and America's Cup that things started to get heated. The absolute earliest I can recall Aussie sniffing a rivalary with us was the fall out from the Montreal Olympics when they started the AIS because our success and their lack thereof.
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While the handling of this whole thing is a mess - ARU Chairman Cameron Clyne has started doing media and comes across much better than Pulver. Moving forward the more media he can do the better.
The real issue comes back to why ARU thought it would be a good idea to expand to 5 teams - they only allowed a handful of years for 4 teams to settle - for a sport with rugby's profile in Australia to jump from 3 teams in 2005 to 5 teams in 2011 is crazy.
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This whole thing was inevitable and many here said so at the time. But, we were just uppity kiwis who should've just shut tfu....
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@Rancid-Schnitzel Agreed. I think most people were predicting that the Aussies couldn't sustain 5 teams when it was announced. I certainly was.
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@KiwiMurph said in Aussie Rugby in general:
While the handling of this whole thing is a mess - ARU Chairman Cameron Clyne has started doing media and comes across much better than Pulver. Moving forward the more media he can do the better.
The real issue comes back to why ARU thought it would be a good idea to expand to 5 teams - they only allowed a handful of years for 4 teams to settle - for a sport with rugby's profile in Australia to jump from 3 teams in 2005 to 5 teams in 2011 is crazy.
Even New Zealand league has the good sense to allow sustained mediocrity from the Warriors for years on end without thinking of adding another team based elsewhere in NZ. I guess the tenuous 'they still have a mathematical chance to make the top 8' line that is trotted out every season can only go so far with one team let alone two......
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@KiwiMurph said in Aussie Rugby in general:
The real issue comes back to why ARU thought it would be a good idea to expand to 5 teams - they only allowed a handful of years for 4 teams to settle - for a sport with rugby's profile in Australia to jump from 3 teams in 2005 to 5 teams in 2011 is crazy.
I disagree. If it was the only focus of Super Rugby expansion I think Australia could sustain 5 teams. Expanding from 3 to 5 over a ~20 year period should have been a cake walk especially considering the success Australian rugby had during the early-mid pro era.
Completely changing the format of the competition is what screwed those franchises the most IMO. The new franchises had to rely heavily on their fellow Australian franchises which were bereft of star power and watered down even further. Draw cards like the Crusaders, Blues that gave the tournament a level of interest or flash are now hardly seen. Those early Force v Crusader games were epic. The build for the Reds v Crusaders game over Easter 2011 was bigger than some recent Bledisloe's. This new system and the shittiness of Australian rugby has blown that momentum.
Expansion franchises for the first 10+ years are to varying degrees all about coming to see the visiting attractions. The attractions coming to Australian rugby grounds currently is absolute garbage.
The addition of other the Sunwolves and the increase in salaries in Europe have diluted the talent pool even further.
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What? I don't get it. Did you get this take from Alan Jones or something? So it's the format, Europe and the Sunwolves fault Australia have three wins over NZ teams over the last one and a half seasons? I have no idea how exactly the format itself has somehow made their teams worse or how the Sunwolves and their FOUR Australian players are diluting Australian rugby (which if that's the case, only helps prove the point they never had the depth to support five teams) but you don't think NZ has to deal with the crap format and the increased salaries in Europe either? Are we in a parallel dimension where we don't have those problems too or something? The big difference from where I'm standing is we have a system that works incredibly well, going from the grassroots right up to the ABs. Australia doesn't, they built a house with an incredibly weak foundation and are now suddenly shocked the fucking thing has fallen apart.
but at least it allows Tests to go to outposts like Canberra 
