Few lessons learnt as Deans finds himself gathering moss

[travelling_gerry]

IT was another eerily quiet train ride back to Sydney's Central Station aside from the drunks, with even the All Black fans maintaining a respectful silence.

Of itself, that spoke volumes. When even New Zealanders realise it's poor form to celebrate raucously while Australians are grieving, it's clear some serious psychological damage has just been inflicted. And that was just to the Wallabies' supporters.

The Wallabies themselves? They keep tunnelling deeper and deeper into hurt and pain and it takes a certain kind of pigheaded optimism to believe that if they just keep going, sooner or later they'll come out on the other side. Maybe they're just digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves.
No, there madness lies. This has all got to be for something. It's not possible that a team of the Wallabies' proud history and standing should be putting itself and the nation through so much misery and heartache without there being some recompense, some suitably staggering pay day that makes sense of all this and makes it all worthwhile.

Of course, in today's modern game, there's only one reward that stacks up, winning the World Cup. But is it possible for the Wallabies to be gaining ground in that regard while falling further and further behind on the Tri-Nations ladder? Maybe, but like White House interns, Australian rugby fans are wearying of constantly having to use the phrase "close, but no cigar".

Saturday's heart-breaker at Sydney's ANZ Stadium was the fourth Test in succession the Wallabies have led the All Blacks at halftime and lost. Even Rocky Elsom is starting to wonder how valuable all these "valuable learning experiences" really are. "It's hard to say if they will be valuable," said Elsom. "We've had a lot of them and they're not exactly paying off."

One waits in vain for the lessons to kick in. Maybe that's why Channel Seven's telecast is always running about a minute and a half behind Fox Sport's live feed, to give their production people time to edit out the mistakes and get it right the second time around for the Wallabies.

Even coach Robbie Deans's seemingly inexhaustible optimism is being put to the test. "It's a bit like creeping moss," Deans said yesterday of his side's progress. "They're getting closer but they're not there yet."

It's been way too long since a Wallabies coach last compared his side to a slow-moving fungus. Sounds like something Dave Brockhoff might have said in one of his more colourful moments.

But is it any wonder Deans's exasperation is starting to show? The Wallabies are achieving something no one would have thought possible a year ago. They are making him look bad - allowing one Kiwi journalist on Saturday night to coyly remind him that he now is one from six in Tests against All Blacks coach Graham Henry. Had his players displayed no more than average composure, Deans could instead be five from six against his arch-rival and the world be a much better place, spared for starters the sight of Henry's infuriatingly smug grin.

So what does Deans do? If the contents of my Inbox are any guide, "sack 'em all" would seem to be the required and appropriate response.

Well, forget that. It's not how Deans operates and, besides, it's customary before making wholesale changes to have a swag of workable alternatives waiting in the wings.

Apart from the injured Digby Ioane, Brumbies captain Stephen Hoiles, young Waratahs centre Rob Horne and the curiously forgotten Cameron Shepherd, it's hard to think of any non-squad members who might add value to the Wallabies. And of them, only Hoiles is a forward and it's the pack that most needs stiffening.

That said, it's hard to see the forward with the stiffest back of all, Al Baxter, surviving. The creeping moss line wasn't by some distance the most extraordinary to come out of Deans's mouth yesterday. Easily topping it was his admission that he planned to replace Baxter, the most capped Australian prop of all time, the moment the veteran tighthead encountered any difficulty with the referee. It was a sentence of death, and while every condemned prisoner in the dock protests his innocence, it may (largely) be true in Baxter's case. His Test career is to be brought to an end not because he's now not good enough - which is ironic, because for years he was carried in the Test side when clearly he wasn't good enough - but because referees have taken to targeting him.

He has become a luxury the Wallabies can no longer afford and his sacking, if it comes, will have one purpose, to get referees off Australia's back. What a sad indictment of rugby that would be. Referees already wield way too much power. Now, it seems, it is within their power to end Baxter's career, just as they ended Bill Young's.

It may not happen just yet, Baxter's execution, because Deans is committed to playing out the remainder of the Tri-Nations with the same squad and he only has the two tightheads, Baxter and Ben Alexander. What's more, Baxter is the best breakdown sealer the Wallabies have and given how ferociously the breakdown has been contested during this Tri-Nations, that's not a talent to be lightly discarded.

Still, it should come as a salutary lesson to the Wallabies that even players who are getting better could soon be railroaded out of the team.

Better that than more eerily silent train trips back to Central.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html

[Happy]

He has become a luxury the Wallabies can no longer afford and his sacking, if it comes, will have one purpose, to get referees off Australia's back. What a sad indictment of rugby that would be. Referees already wield way too much power. Now, it seems, it is within their power to end Baxter's career, just as they ended Bill Young's.

Wow - If a player or Coach said that...

[rick boyd]

IT was another eerily quiet train ride back to Sydney's Central Station aside from the drunks, with even the All Black fans maintaining a respectful silence.

The reason that the New Zealanders were quiet is because they knew they had just seen a crap game of rugby from two very average teams, played under outdated laws that favour negativity, obstruction and spoiling. A game where the result depended not on one team outplaying the other, but on which rules the referee did or did not choose to pick at the breakdown lottery and which team could make the worst mistakes at the worst time.

As it turned out, either side could easily have won with Australia dominating possession in the first half and New Zealand in the second half. New Zealand scored the only try but also made (or the referee decided they made, which is the same thing in terms of scoring opportunities) more errors that produced penalty goals, and missed a couple of their own penalty attempts.

At the end of the game, one error by Australia (a poor kick by Giteau that was charged down) led to a penalty in the breakdown lottery (holding on after the tackle) which Carter kicked.

New Zealand were lucky to win.

What amazes me is the torrent of drivel written by some of my fellow journos after the game, as though New Zealand had competely outplayed Australia and won by 20 points, and Australia had been so awful that they barely deserved to be on the paddock. And you can guarantee that exactly the same drivel would have been written in reverse had Carter missed that last kick.

This Tri-Nations series is about the lowest quality that I can recall.