I'm not overly keen on posting articles from Spiro and the like, but I thought there was something in this worth looking at, especially thinking of the problems the Force are having, the tradition-less clusterfuck that is the Super Rugby competition at the moment and also some of the detachment Australian rugby seems to be having from it's grand slam and world cup winning past. Ignore the focus on the Tahs, I'm thinking of it in terms of the Force and Australian rugby in general:



New South Wales need rebranding as true Waratahs By Spiro Zavos, 27 Jun 2011

An hour or so before the Blues-Waratahs qualifying final I attended a memorial service for David Brockhoff at St Andrews College, Sydney University. Brock was an old student of the college, a stalwart player for Sydney University, the Waratahs and the Wallabies, and an inspiring coach for University, the Waratahs and the Wallabies.

If anyone embodied the indomitable spirit of Australian rugby, the Brock, “the greatest character the Australian game has ever seen,” was that man.

The rugby tribe of Sydney, from players of the 1940s (Dr John Solomon, Sir Nick Shehadie), and 1960s through to the 2000s (Peter Crittle, Tony Abrahams, Mark Loane, Gary Pearse, Phil Crow, Chris Handy, John Eales) through to 2011 (Drew Mitchell, Berrick Barnes, Tatafu Polata-Nau, Al Baxter and Ben Mowen) were all there to share in the sadness, the laughter and the memory of a passionate rugby life, well played.

Brock was the ultimate loyalist.

He was famous for being at the airport when the Waratahs travelled out of Sydney and when they came back. Win or lose, Brock was there.

On Sunday was a sad occasion when this tradition came to an end.

In some ways Brock would have been proud of the tenacity and guts an injured, battered Waratahs team displayed. But he would have been shattered about the outcome.

One of his sons related how Brock would be depressed for a day or so after any of the teams he followed or coached or played lost. And the way the Waratahs lost would have depressed him even more.

The point here is that the Waratahs had a good chance of winning this match, even though they were down 8-13 at halftime.

They had dominated the first 20 minutes against a Blues side that looked nervous, brittle and out of sorts. Then the Waratahs got a try from virtually nothing.

But from the kick-off, instead of running the ball and exploiting the fragile tackling of the Blues back line, they booted the ball back to the Blues to run the ball at them.

The number of injured Waratahs at Brock’s memorial service provides, perhaps, an excuse of sorts for the tentative play of the side. But I would argue against this.

Polata-Nau and Drew Mitchell were the big losses. The Waratahs lost their first three lineout throws, one way or another. Polata-Nau’s throwing isn’t great but he wouldn’t have been as erratic as this.

And when the Waratahs were making breaks and running the ball in the first 20 minutes, Mitchell might have carved out one of his signature runs to force points from the Blues.

At half-time I paid special attention to the comments of coach Chris Hickey. In the past he almost invariably has talked about ‘field position’ or the need to be ‘more accurate in our passing.’

To me, these comments have always been code for saying that ‘the boys have been told to kick rather than run.’ And, what do you know? “Field position’ is a priority,” Hickey told the TV reporter.

And this is what the Waratahs, with the exception of Kurtley Beale, did with the limited amount of ball they had in the second half. The tactics lost them the match.

A number of the match reports and some of the commentary of the match identified the Blues’ tactical kicking as the difference between the two sides. I would disagree with this.

At half-time the Blues came out with a plan to hold on to the ball as long as possible, and then when the full potential of that set of possessions was used, to smack it deep into the Waratahs’ 22.

The point is that the Blues made the Waratahs tackle, tackle and tackle and then trudge back to their 22 when the kicks were put in.

As a consequence, the Blues won the second half 13-5 and with this result were able to win comfortably, even though they conceded a try in the last few minutes of play.

This victory was far more comfortable than it should have been.

After the match Beale suggested that he had tried too much and made mistakes with his efforts to get the Waratahs on the front foot. Nonsense.

The other players just did not back him up with their efforts to take the ball to the Blues, after the first 20 minutes. Josh Holmes, who played well for the most of the game, only ran once – and made a break.

Why didn’t he run more? On a couple of occasions when confronted with no options he put in stupid kicks, a la Luke Burgess.

Are the halfbacks programmed this way?

Tom Carter, who scored a try with a bullocking run through the flimsy defence of the Blues backs, told reporters the Waratahs had to be more ruthless and “harder on each other” if they wanted to win trophies.

To me these are meaningless statements. They don’t get to the heart of the problem.

And that problem is that the Waratahs have never been able to play high tempo, ruthless, try-scoring winning rugby when the chips are down.

Not under Bob Dwyer when he took the team into their first finals in 2002: not under Ewen McKenzie when he took the team into four finals in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010: and not under Chris Hickey in 2011.

Why is this?

I think we need to go back to 1991 when the CEO of the NSW Rugby Union, Gary Pearse, an outstanding Randwick, New South Wales and Australian flank forward, re-branded New South Wales as the Waratahs, placing the words “Running Rugby” under their emblem.

That 1991 team had an undefeated season, which included matches in Argentina. The bulk of the side made up the 1991 Wallabies which won the Rugby World Cup tournament in the UK.

And where did the Waratahs name come from? From the nick-name of a wonderful NSW side that toured the UK in 1927/28 (Peter Fenton has written a stimulating and brilliant account of the tour) defeating Ireland, Wales and France and losing to Scotland and England.

In the words of Peter Jenkins in his magisterial history ‘Wallaby Gold,’ the Waratahs philosophy ‘involved all 15 players having the pigskin in their hands … devoted to the ideals of running the ball … practitioners of a pattern of play that would become the Wallabies’ way … a continuous, free-flowing, 15-man game.’

The teams that that have closest to this ideal in the history of the Super Rugby tournament since 1996 were the early Blues sides under Graham Henry, the Brumbies up to 2004 (under Rod Macqueen, Eddie Jones and David Nucifora) and the Crusaders (under Robbie Deans).

I once asked Deans how he got his sides to run the ball so well from turnover ball. He is a laconic man, not given to long explanations (unlike the great Brock who could discuss for hours, say, the Vic Cavanagh theory of rucking).

Deans was silent for a few seconds before he said: “It takes a lot of practice.” And it requires aerobic fitness.

When Brad Thorne came back from rugby league for the second time, Deans told him he had to take some kilos off his frame by running rather than gym work.

This was the point that David Campese made in 1991 when England said they were going to give up their kick-and-chase tactics in the final of World Cup: ‘It takes more than five minutes to learn how to run the ball.’

My argument against the present coaching staff of the Waratahs is that they have not given their squad the systems and structures to play the traditional Waratahs game, the only game that can win a Super Rugby title for the franchise.

No Australian side is ever going to dominate the best South African and New Zealand sides with their pack.

The trophy will be won by an Australian side that plays Waratahs rugby in the 1927/28 and 1991 spirit. I can hear Brock agreeing with me as I write this down: “Of course, you are right, boy.”

Incidentally, it is exactly what the great Terry Curley (a star of St Joseph’s, New South Wales and Australia) said so eloquently at the public forum the Waratahs board put on during the season to hear what the supporters had to say about the team.

So this 2011 season need not be entirely lost, if the message gets through to the Waratahs board that another re-branding exercise along the lines of 1991 is needed.

This means: going back to the traditional Waratahs guersney. Changing the training methods along the lines of the Crusaders to favour aerobic fitness rather than gym fitness (as an aside, is there any connection between the intensive gym work the players do and the number of injuries their inflexible bodies sustain?).

To encourage the sort of brilliant back play and storming forward play the Waratahs were once famous for.

Bring into the Waratahs organisation is some capacity the former greats like Mark Ella, Nick Farr-Jones and Simon Poidevin.

The Reds have done this with Tim Horan, Rod McCall and others, and they have adopted the traditional Waratahs philosophy of running the ball to now be in a prime position to win the Super Rugby trophy for the first time.

The irony here is that the Waratahs seem to have adopted the traditional Queensland game of field position that has failed the Reds since 1996.

The new Waratahs need coaching staff that brings in people who have been brought up in the traditions of the running game. Someone like Alan Gaffney comes to mind.

This means that Chris Hickey and his designated successor Michael Foley should be shown the door.

It was noticeable at the supporter’s forum that none of the Waratahs staff or players who were there had a clue who Terry Curley was.

The board (and there are some wonderful people on it) must begin to understand that tradition is the life-blood of any rugby franchise. The Crusaders, for instance, have emerged from Canterbury rugby, which has been famous since the 1890s for the clever, ruthless, winning rugby played in the province.

The Waratahs board needs to understand this when making their review of the 2011 season and the coaching structure for 2011.

Getting back to Brock, this was something he understood totally.

When you put on the jersey you become or should become part of the tradition.

For a Waratah, that means total identification and resolve to play the 15-man running rugby game, to defeat any side anywhere, and in any circumstance.