NRL urged to retain Johns

[shasta]

Wallabies haven't asked Joey

By Darren Walton
July 05, 2007

STEPHEN Larkham has urged the Australian Rugby Union to step up its pursuit of Andrew Johns, declaring the master kicker and tactician's presence to be the last piece in the Australia Rugby World Cup jigsaw.

Jeez, guys why don't you just write 'em a letter! I was not really being earlier in this thread about Rugby hiring RL coaches to build a defense and getting Joey to help break them down.

These patterns evolve in both games all the time. The Wallabies have been particularly vulnerable to "rush" defence patterns in the past couple of seasons. Joey is a master of reading these and breaking them down with innovative kicking options. The one Larkham used the other night which nearly resulted in a try to Mortlock was a fairly simple one. For a fly-half of Bernie's experience, how many times does he use it? Remember the first try of the last RWC final? Straight out of the Brisbane Bronco's play list - Langer for Tuqiri in the corner. These are just the type of tactics you need to sow the seeds of doubt in the oppo's defensive confidence.

Just get Joey on board and shut up about it!

[Flamethrower]

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...-23217,00.html
Johns wraps up Wallabies role

By Peter Jenkins
July 14, 2007

RETIRED rugby league great Andrew Johns put his final stamp on the Australia rugby union team yesterday as the ARU went cold on plans to involve him as a World Cup consultant.
Test centurion Stephen Larkham is the latest senior Wallaby urging the ARU to recruit Johns in a coaching capacity for the Webb Ellis trophy campaign in France.

Larkham said he would welcome the chance of ongoing interaction with the former Kangaroos star - adding a further voice to calls from dual international Lote Tuqiri and the world's most capped player George Gregan for Johns to have a World Cup input.

All three suggested he boasts the knowledge and tactical awareness to provide the Wallabies with an unexpected cutting edge at the global titles.

But sources revealed that the session with the Wallabies at Coogee Oval yesterday afternoon would be the last involving Johns if a formal arrangement fails to materialise - and the ARU were not moving in that direction last night.

ARU high performance chief Pat Wilson said there were, at this stage, no plans to take Johns on board for the World Cup because existing commitments would prevent him from travelling to France until the end of the pool match preliminaries.

"If Andrew happened to be in Europe during the World Cup and wanted to drop in on a training session that could be something we'd look at," Wilson said.

"Beyond that, the reality is he's got media commitments that will keep him here until the NRL grand final on September 30."

The Wallabies will by then have played four pool matches against Japan, Wales, Canada and Fiji - but would have a quarter-final and potentially a semi-final and final in the three weeks to follow.

"Andrew has got some openings in October," Johns' manager John Fordham said. "But at this stage we've had no discussions with the ARU."

Schooling from Johns in the week before the game was the trigger for Larkham to place the grubber kick that almost laid on a try for centre Stirling Mortlock in the Melbourne win over the All Blacks.

Leading players also insist it is more than kicking expertise that Johns has offered during visits over the past two months.

"Even small things like your body language on the field, how to shape to do one thing and then do another," said one insider.