Geez, it seems he did nothing wrong!
http://www.abc.net.au/overnights/stories/s4119481.htm
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Geez, it seems he did nothing wrong!
http://www.abc.net.au/overnights/stories/s4119481.htm
after the demise of his replacement, who didn't seem to fix a single issue, I wonder how much fault can really be directed at him!
I thought he was pretty restrained considering. Thought his background to the QC "toxic" comment was enlightening and thought his observations about how the NZ clubs reacted to professionalism relative to the Australian clubs was very interesting. For mine, summed up the root cause of most of the current woes in Australian rugby.
yeah,good inteview
Interesting comments from Deans. It shows how the Wallaby culture has changed, there was once a time when Australia were expected to win all their games. I remember when it was the Wallabies who were the team who used to pull last-gasp victories away from the jaws of defeat.
His comments about rugby celebrating it's points of difference and not lowering itself to competing with other codes on their level were brilliant; especially when he pointed out how other codes can control media channels and "look to beat you up at every opportunity." Very poignant. When you add that to his comments about how passionate and committed the Australian rugby community is; and that there is a difference between that community and the Australian mainstream public towards rugby in general, it goes to show just how much he came to understand about the nature of the game in this country.
I loved his comments about club rugby. It's worth noting that he believes this started to permeate through all the levels. I remember a back in the 90's thinking that the expansion of SuperRugby to three teams in Australia, with the inclusion of the Brumbies, was there to provide players who missed out on NSW and Qld with an opportunity to play at the highest level, and to stem the flow of players going overseas. Somehow, with further Aussie SuperRugby expansion, we ended up with teams trying to bid for the best players via better contracts. We went from expanding the game to benefit Aussie rugby; to franchises behaving like European soccer clubs, bidding for players to benefit themselves instead.
I hope the interviewer was being tongue-in-cheek or playing devil's advocate when he stated Australia would have won the 2011 RWC if we beat Ireland though.
An engrossing interview, my opinion of Robbie Deans as man has always been high, this has done no damage to that opinion. :thumleft: