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Thread: MOC on Cheika and the Wallabies

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    MOC on Cheika and the Wallabies

    'Always going to end in tears': O'Connor says Cheika's Wallabies were doomed to fail at World Cup

    Tom Decent
    By Tom Decent
    June 17, 2020 — 12.01am

    Outgoing Wallabies selector Michael O’Connor has broken his silence on Australia’s poor World Cup campaign by criticising players for not standing up to coach Michael Cheika, revealing team selection meetings were “awkward” and suggesting the failure was due to awful training standards.

    In an exclusive interview with the Herald, O’Connor, who represented the Wallabies and Kangaroos, is optimistic about the future of Australian rugby but expressed frustration at the capitulation of the men in gold in Japan last year. Australia lost to Wales in the pool stages before being thumped by England 40-16 in the quarter-finals.

    O’Connor was initially contracted as an independent Wallabies selector again for this year but was released by Rugby Australia due to financial constraints; a decision he understands.

    The former Australian men's sevens coach came on board in tumultuous circumstances early last year.

    After the Wallabies’ worst year on record since 1958 - they won four of 13 Tests in 2018 - something had to give. RA decided to back Cheika but decreased his autonomy by appointing Scott Johnson over the top as a director of rugby as well bringing in O'Connor as a third selector.

    In principle, it was a logical decision. Behind the scenes, it was never going to work.

    When Cheika resigned after the World Cup, he said he had next to no relationship with then RA chief executive Raelene Castle. The pair had to be separated after a verbal stoush at the Australian embassy in Tokyo mid-way through the tournament.

    In a recent interview with The Times, Cheika said he should have walked away at the end of 2018.

    “In a footy team there can only be one boss, that’s all there is to it," he said. “I should have left because that shows they didn’t trust me any more. But I loved Australian rugby and I thought I could do it.”

    O’Connor said he felt uneasy about the situation.

    “Raelene was just hell-bent on trying to rein in Michael Cheika … and that was always going to be difficult,” he said. “He’s a particular sort of person, very strong-willed, so that was not easy. Michael wasn’t appointed by her. It was a difficult, awkward situation.”

    At the selection table throughout 2019, there was debate about the Wallabies’ best side. Yet despite what O’Connor and Johnson thought, Cheika ruled with an iron fist and mostly got his way, particularly at the World Cup with a few obvious coach's calls.

    “I certainly sensed that he would rather have flown solo on selections,” O’Connor said. “A lot of coaches are that way and they like to take responsibility. He more or less got what he wanted.

    “He was very loyal to players that delivered in the past in Super 15 and the [2015] World Cup. He wanted to take responsibility for the selections, so it was a bit awkward.”

    In a recent podcast, Kurtley Beale said he felt Australia were "really hindered" by the constant chopping and changing of teams throughout 2019 and at the World Cup.

    Cheika said it would create healthy competition but O’Connor knew it meant combinations would be raw at rugby’s showpiece tournament. However, O’Connor put the heat on Australia's senior players, saying there was a lack of leadership on speaking up.

    “Kurtley is right, you build strong combinations and you’ve got to stick with them in my opinion … but the players have got to take some responsibility too with Michael Cheika,” O’Connor said. “They should have voiced those concerns to the coach.

    “It was brought up quietly [to me] by a few players that the high-risk strategy [wasn’t working] but they weren’t strong enough to go to the coach and say 'hey listen, we disagree'. Somebody needed to stand up. We had some reasonably strong personalities but we didn’t have a strong enough group. They didn’t challenge Michael and the style of footy they were asked to play. There were players in the team that weren’t sold on it.

    “It was one of the failings from that campaign; players who clearly weren’t sold on the style of play either didn’t voice their concern or were afraid of ramifications.”

    O’Connor told the players he was a selector and had no say on strategy. Watching training behind closed doors, he was flabbergasted.

    “I’ve never ever seen as much dropped ball from a national team. That was disturbing,” he said. “If you’re going to drop it training, you’re going to drop it in a game - and it [happened].

    “Situations where you’ve got Sekope Kepu trying to tip on balls in midfield like he’s Mark Ella, front-rowers playing like centres when they should be hitting the ball up … you train the way you play.”

    O’Connor eventually asked Cheika about the supposed 'secret' game plan he had up his sleeve.

    “When you look back on it: what was it?” O’Connor said. “That new attacking style he was going to bring to the Wallabies; it was so secretive and he had to play players out of Super commitments and fly them to Brisbane and educate them. I don’t know. It was almost like a scam.

    “I always thought with me he was holding back. I always asked what the new style of play was and he told me. I thought there has got to be more than that. I always thought he had something in reserve and he was being very cagey. That’s fine. But he didn’t. It was always going to end in tears.

    “It’s water under the bridge. We’ve got to move on from [Cheika] and he keeps getting air. I am very bullish about the future and given what we’ve come through.”

    O'Connor did not want to discuss the fact that Castle felt compelled to apologise to World Cup organisers for the behaviour of Wallabies staff members, in particular Cheika.

    With new Wallabies coach Dave Rennie starting next month and a high turnover of players at the top level, O’Connor believes Australia could be on the cusp of a golden era.

    “We’ve got some real young genuine talent and I’d be very optimistic about our chances for the next World Cup,” he said. “We’ve got some really good young players coming through - potentially world-class players - and we didn’t have enough of them over the last decade.

    “I think we are really on the cusp of another really good era in Australia. We’re getting good coaches in Dan McKellar and Brad Thorn coming on. We’ve brought some good coaches to Australia, the rule changes are good for the game too. There’s a lot of positives.”

    Tom Decent

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-u...16-p55329.html

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    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Good article. Fardy and Larkham spoke out about it and got farked off by Clown. They are both in Ireland getting more appreciation.

    O’Connor is right about training standards and it has been a malaise for a long time. Djuro Sen said to Ben Kimber in a Ruggamatrix podcast that he was flabbergasted at the Tahs lack of attention and attitude to basics. The test players who weren’t even winning thought they were above them. I saw them warm up and play last year. Phipps trying reverse switches and flicks when they couldn’t catch basic passes unopposed. Beale and Foley’s left to right passes for inside backs was atrocious.

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    Don't know what role he's playing at the Chooks, but I cant recall a team in either code that executes with such precision as they are at the moment, so I doubt he has much input to attack. Though, I suppose if he is, he's dealing with an already fine tuned outfit. Incredibly, the handling errors among the Wallabies has been an unresolved issue for years. It's , usually a given that when a team is struggling this way the game plan is stripped right back to the basics and slowly rebuilt with the emphasis on defense and ball retention. You don't continue with a "new" way of playing that's clearly not functioning in the lead-up to RWC.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bakkies View Post
    Good article. Fardy and Larkham spoke out about it and got farked off by Clown. They are both in Ireland getting more appreciation.

    O’Connor is right about training standards and it has been a malaise for a long time. Djuro Sen said to Ben Kimber in a Ruggamatrix podcast that he was flabbergasted at the Tahs lack of attention and attitude to basics. The test players who weren’t even winning thought they were above them. I saw them warm up and play last year. Phipps trying reverse switches and flicks when they couldn’t catch basic passes unopposed. Beale and Foley’s left to right passes for inside backs was atrocious.
    A Force fan who attended the Wallabies captains Run before the Bledisloe in Perth was shocked by the amount of dropped ball etc compared to watching the Force warm-up

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    Quote Originally Posted by JSJ View Post
    A Force fan who attended the Wallabies captains Run before the Bledisloe in Perth was shocked by the amount of dropped ball etc compared to watching the Force warm-up
    That's saying something because I've never considered the Force to have glue on their hands when warming up, better than other Oz teams probably, but certainly not vault-like

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