Kiwis boot Wallabies from World Cup

[Tonkar]

Lets see the rest of the squad in the playoff SHARP for Captain and leave out the cooper genia elsom vickerman fainga mccabe I just see what deans had in his mind with some selections

[GAFFA]

Quade Cooper was toilet, Aaron Cruden in his second test was showing him how it's done. Crap tactics, crap decision making when the crap tactics failed, why did we not change?! Fainga'a.2 is as bad as his dreadlocked twin. I doubt McCabe passed the ball once all game. Missing tackles. Boring attack. Revolting centre comination.

QC was toilet because of the people around him just as Aaron Cruden was showing him up because fo the other players outside him Nonu and Smith vs McCabe and Fainga what a joke pair. "Crap tactics" was the death of the wallabies and RD must go because of it. But we all know how much JO'N love old Robbie and we have another 2 years to go of this crap.

[KenyaQuin]

Maybe the professional era has changed things abit but I thought the players had some responsibility for the decisions they make on the field.

After the second or third kick..hell, double that..after the 6th or 7th kick, you would think that amongst some in the team, there would be a realisation that the gameplan (if kicking for territory was the plan) was not achieving the desired results and there should have been atleast one in there proposing "guys, forget the kicks, let's run the ball and take it from there."

Rugby is not gridiron..it is not scripted to the n-th degree. Once the whistle goes to start the game, the players are expected to read the game/opposition and adjust to the conditions and situations.

Maybe players are robots..

[The InnFORCEr]

there should have been atleast one in there proposing "guys, forget the kicks, let's run the ball and take it from there."
..

Sharpie didn't play

[.X.]

Ant Finger is no farking better. He made one dominant tackle in the TN series and he has been dining out on it ever since.

.

Why not - it was good enough for George Gregan for 10 years

[Buddha Handy]

What about Rocky's missed tackles, there were a few including the one that led to the try, I wonder if Robbie is still trying to play him into form!!

no doubt he will not try anything different for the wales game but I would like to see this for some running rugby

1. Slipper
2. TPN
3. Maafu (may as well have a game)
4. Simmons
5. Sharpe (c)
6. Hodgson
7. Pocock
8. Higginbotham
9. Burgess
10. Beale
11. Ioane
12. O'Connor
13. Horne
14. Turner
15. Barnes

[Zorba]

When Cooper kicked the ball out on the full at the beginning of the game, I knew it was going to be a long day. Those who said at the end of the Springboks game that Cooper has had his bad game and it won't happen again obviously don't play golf. Just ask Tiger.

Credit has to go to the All Blacks who were far superior in all aspects of the game.

[Sheikh]

My $0.02:

Given the injuries the Wallabies had, the team on the park was about the strongest that Dingo could have put out. I’d have had Sharpie at lock, although Horwill and Vickerman aren’t a bad combination and Simmons did a reasonable job coming on.

The front row weren’t good enough, which is a long-term problem (Robinson coming back from injury will only shore up one side of the scrum) – Kepu and Alexander are only average scrummagers. Moore is generally good, but not great, and his throwing this year has been no better than OK. Who calls the line-outs, as I rarely saw decent possession from one.

The back row can be good, but got bullied by the ABs – Elsom has to support Pocock better than that to beat the Kiwis, as their back-row work together far better. Samo has been a great story, and can probably continue at Super Rugby, but he's past it at international level. That probably means Palu comes back, though.

Genia looked flustered – he’s still young and needs to learn how to play when the forwards aren't dominating.

Quade’s the best player the Wallabies have for unlocking defences. His own defence is horrible and he’s prone to brain farts; until he gets those sorted out he’ll never be compared to Dan Carter, but the Wallabies have to play him. Barnes could replace Quade but has a history of concussions.

McCabe is toilet, the one man from the starting 15 I’d not have in the 22 (maybe even the 30), but for Deans to pick him must mean that’s the way he wants Australia to play – straight ahead runners with good defence but little guile – Quade will by-pass them if needs be.

AAC is the closest thing Australia has to Stirling Mortlock, even if he isn’t fit to tie his boot-laces, but his defence and punishing running mean he again had to be picked by Deans – there’s no-one better than him in Australia at that style of play.

I can’t fault Ioane and O’Connor on the wings apart from maybe having to come inside more often to receive the ball. Mitchell would be an improvement when fit.

Beale is the best full-back available, covers for Quade in defence and comes up to take the ball for runs. With him in the side the Wallabies look much more co-ordinated so losing him was huge.

With Beale out, if Faingaa is the best available, I'd have moved O’Connor to full-back and AAC to the wing.

I did notice that the oldest back Australia took to the RWC was Burgess (28) so the group will be together for another cup, some of them another two. Only three of the forwards are over 30 (Sharpie, Vickerman and Samo). There's a decent chance 25 or so of this squad will be back in 2015.

The main fault with the Wallabies is that they don’t play to their strengths; they play to a Deans game-plan which isn’t good enough. The Reds won Super Rugby with an attacking style that suits Australian players. It can be high risk, and maybe isn’t going to win tournaments (they only just beat the Force, but only just beat us twice – they could win close games) but it’s much more fun than watching aerial ping-pong or dour one-out rugby which Deans seems to be telling his players to play.

Maybe it was all part of the All Black masterplan to win back Bill!

[shasta]

Simple fact is the Wallabies were beaten by the best team in the world. They have almost always been so and it's just taken them a bit of time to get the RWC monkey off their back. A bit scary to think what they can do in future. The only way Australia will get parity in the long term is to vastly improve our set piece and develop forwards who have the same level of aggression and consistency as the AB's.

Good as Cooper can be with the ball at times, and apart from his continuous brain farts, long term I think the strategy of hiding a week defender is a losing one. There are too many ways to take advantage of the continual re-aligning of defenders. A true 5/8 MUST have every weapon in the armoury. You can't expect to beat the best witout one. I always thought that was a basic tenet of the game.

Robbie Deans says sentiment plays no part in selections. Fair enough. But OTOH, maybe blind faith can obscure the obvious. One thing he says often is that he's still continually learning. Hope so because he's still a pretty good option, at least for the duration of his contract. But, after the way Link was able to get the Reds to change their game plan around last season, I can't help wondering how he would have handled the RWC campaign.

I hope NZ put 50 on the French.

[BeeJay]

We mustn't forget that the Blicks played out of their skin. The looks on their faces and the fire in their eyes was amazing, scary even. They have powerful forwards who are fast. They have fast backs who are powerful. We did not compete in the dynamism stakes at all. It is amazing we have beaten them on a couple of occasions recently.

They seemed primed to the right level of anxiety to promote top performance. We were (surprisingly) far too anxious - on the downward slope of the Yerkes-Dodson curve. The way they started just fed their resolve, and added to our anxiety. We needed to put doubt in their mind. We never came close.

[Buddha Handy]

I just keep thinking back to the fact that we beat France 59-16 in Paris last year in probably the best performance I have seen and he has never gone back to that backline.

It was

9 Genia
10 Cooper
11 Mitchell (would swap with Ioane)
12 Barnes
13 AAC
14 O'Connor
15 Beale

Bench

20 Burgess
21 Gits
22 Turner

the forward pack was slipper, moore, alexander, simmons, sharpe, elsom, pocock and mccalman with TPN, robinson, chisholm and higgers on the bench

[GAFFA]

I just keep thinking back to the fact that we beat France 59-16 in Paris last year in probably the best performance I have seen and he has never gone back to that backline.
It was
9 Genia
10 Cooper
11 Mitchell (would swap with Ioane)
12 Barnes
13 AAC
14 O'Connor
15 Beale

That’s the backline I have been calling for during the whole RWC i don’t under stand the man love for McCabe and Fainga its almost like

RD: Can you Pass?
McCabe and Fainga: NO.
RD: Can you step?
McCabe and Fainga": NO.
RD:Can you Create an overlap or space?
McCabe and Fainga: NO.
RD:Can you tackle good?
McCabe and Fainga: Not to bad.
RD: Your in!

What a joke!