Totally agree with your thoughts. I was pretty disappointed Dave Rennie was sacked on a whim. Eddie's approach of a 'smash and grab' world cup was always risky and a long shot.
We need more people watching the game through free-to-air TV to bring in more funding, but that takes time to build. In fact, it will take a long time to slow the decline and turn around. Until those at the top realise it will get worse before it gets better and there is no magic sacking or signing that will 'fix' things, we will continue our decline.
I don't know. Feels like we've gone past the point of being able to take less money for long term strategy. The fact RA's broadcast deal is worth around $30m a year compared to $400m for the NRL and around $650m for the AFL illustrates how dire things are.
We were at the game. The players body language did not look good at the start of the second half. I know absolutely nothing about elite sport but from an organisation view there is something really wrong.
They clearly lost belief and I hate to admit it, but I turned it off at the 53 min mark. Not because it was a disgrace or I had anything better to do, but because it was so sad watching it unfold. Felt like I was watching a friend get executed.
I'm really worried about the players. The first half they tried things but the execution was not quite there. But 2nd half it was a different team. It's like they lost the belief in themselves and when you don't have that, it's always going to be tough to come back.
That was so evident watching. I wonder what happened in the sheds at half time. This is where not having Hooper or Cooper there was a big problem. It is not just what happens on the field. Experience and mentorship and holding the team 'tight' is so important. I really worry for all of them..and Eddy. Really bad to boo someone. He is human too...I think?
No. I agree but I wonder if having some more experience in the team would have helped them a bit psychologically dealing with the pressure and weight of expectation?
They had Slipper's, White, Tupou, Kerevi and Eddie's experience. But agree they would have done better with more. Just how much better is the question we'll never know the answer too.
BA, can we do something about getting rugby into the public schools. We've got hundreds of kids whose parents cant afford 30k a year for school. Instead of spending millions on Suaalii invest that getting qualified coaches into the primary schools when they are 10/11 years old.
Can we make junior club rugby the pinnacle and have our juniors all playing club rugby. Can we have the private schools work in alignment with RA to help the game rather than trying to win a stupid school premiership.
To early to call whether the Suaalii investment was worth it, but I hear ya. Although, Rugby is losing popularity in private schools too as AFL is played at Knox. We need to stem the bleeding.
The whole Public School V Private school should not be a thing anymore, but rugby is still known to be a private school sport. I'm not sure if there is much of a difference between the rego costs of league V union but I do know that junior soccer is significantly more experience than AFL rego because the AFL subsidise the junior registration.
I find it interesting that grass roots rely on volunteer parents to coach and will pay top dollar for their first grade seniors team coaches and players. Money is better invested in grassroots, so kids learn and enjoy the sport. It could be the difference in staying or leaving the sport. Taking match payments away from senior club rugby would mean you'd have players playing because they want to, not because they're getting paid to.
I totally agree Ben! Should not have changed the coach until after the WC.
Im shattered for the players who will cop the brunt of it 😭.
I think for RA to take a long hard look at themselves, this needed to happen. Sometimes ya need to hit rock bottom before getting back to the top.
Its not just lack if exposure. You rarely see super rugby on the news, 9 dont advertise well either. Im constantly telling people the Sat night super rugby fixture is on free to air (9gem) nobody knows about it. Not only does RA limit the capacity to gain new fans, they've just given current ones a motive to give up on rugby all together.
I won't give up. Support them through their highs and lows but RA need to take a long hard look at themselves and nothing will change until they do. It's obvious the issue isnt the coach or the chosen playing squad. But I also agree with Eddie, he needed a break between tenures.
Thanks Ben. Awesome capture and brilliant early analysis. I particularly enjoyed the spiral views in respect to Rugby/Aussie Rules and the flexibility (or not) to tailor the games-strategies to Aussies that AFL has and RA possibly hasn’t
There are two problems. One is short term and it is about how the Wallabies play and are coached. That is fixable as there are still enough quality players to make up a 30 person squad. The second is the structure and organisation of the game and that is far harder to fix. In the short term the Wallabies need a coherent game plan and, as Ireland demonstrated, that usually involves building on top of how your best province or region play. In their case they are like a super charged Leinster. New Zealand also play I. A style similar to their best super rugby sides. The Wallabies before Eddie at least had some hallmarks of the Brumbies with great lineout and mail etc. That DNA has been thrown out. Yesterday’s team had very few combinations in critical places which is also a hallmark of good sides. A build on the Brumbies pattern may not have won the World Cup but it would have been better than the shambles of yesterday. Selection is also a huge issue. Is there anyone out there who believes Donaldson is the top 10 in Australia? Ridiculous.
I agree on both fronts, but I think the long term issue needs to be addressed first. To often we've focused on short term fixes, and if we keep going at this rate of decline, we won't even qualify for 2043 world cup.
But on a happier note, can Scotland upset Ireland?
Extremely unlikely based on what we saw at the weekend. Scotland have as much skill as Ireland but their pack has more power and they have been able to suffocate Scotland’s creativity in recent outings. That will be so hard to combat. However, I will be in the stadium doing my own bit to encourage the lads to make a bit of history!
Ben I truely believe we are now a bona fide tier 2 nation and we need to act and think like one. It’s hard cause we all remember what it was like being on top of the world. Questions I want answers to:
Q1) How much benefit do we get from being cleaned up by NZ 3 times / year.
Q2) why do we need 5 super Rugby teams.
Q3) this is a performance related business and the complete board need to go. (Maybe that was more of a statement).
Clare, I've got kids that play Rugby, AFL & League on the Gold Coast. Our son is u14 this year. There was no u14 Gold Coast competition this year, there was no u15 competition this year. Kids needed to travel to Brisbane twice a week to train and then again on Sunday to play. The u14 league competition on the coast has 3 Divisions.
Why would parents with their busy lives drive 75 minutes in traffic 3 times a week to play Union when their kids can drive 5 minutes down the road to play League. Well we are one of the "stupid" parents who drove our kid to Brisbane to play rugby because he loves the game, we also have him enrolled at school in Brisbane because he loves the game.
We would love for there to be viable options where we live but there isn't. In terms of costs, we found AFL to be the most expensive at over $450 for the season this was almost $100 more expensive than the Rugby fees.
BA please use your influence/contacts to really push the importance of club rugby. It must be our primary source of talent ID moving forward.
Some of the press have a lot to answer for. Instead of writing about the positives it seems to be one negative article after another. This time last year they were writing about Rennie’s coaching record without any recognition of where the team had come from and what they had achieved, e.g. only team to come close to beating France and Ireland last year. The team and the game are in much better shape than it would appear. Consigning some of the press to the gossip pages won’t happen but that is where some of them belong.
I agree and the press didn't share Eddie's explanations for how and why he is trying to change how the team is playing. Instead they just focused on the drama, and Eddie should have kept up his podcast so he could have spoken to fans directly.
True - I think it's the whole media machine (not just rugby) that's broken.
Something happens -> someone writes an article -> someone comments on a podcast about what happened -> someone writes an article about the podcast comment -> podcast comment article is raised at press conference -> new article written about coach response to podcast comment.
It's all needless crap, that doesn't provide meaningful value to anyone's life. Just more negativity, because negativity gets clicks.
Yesterday I blocked theroar, smh, watoday and reddit on my phone and laptop. Feels good to be disconnected!
One advantage of PTSD (and I'm not being flippant here) is that you struggle to get passionate about anything: up or down. So I am sad but not devastated, disappointed but not surprised. It feels like there has been a 20-year quest for a sugar hit which always led to the inevitable. And AFL has been patiently building for all that time, taking incremental wins until - bang - overnight success.
Last week anger. This week complete despair but an accurate reflection of where the game is at in Australia. Shame as the Ireland South Africa game was epic.
Australians seem more attracted to games that no one else plays and that we can control. It has been a unique development over the past 10 years and does not look like stopping.
I don’t realise that it was a captains call. His head has to roll. There is a lot of solid rugby knowledge on that board.
Totally agree with your thoughts. I was pretty disappointed Dave Rennie was sacked on a whim. Eddie's approach of a 'smash and grab' world cup was always risky and a long shot.
We need more people watching the game through free-to-air TV to bring in more funding, but that takes time to build. In fact, it will take a long time to slow the decline and turn around. Until those at the top realise it will get worse before it gets better and there is no magic sacking or signing that will 'fix' things, we will continue our decline.
I supported Eddie's appointment at the time, but it's clear we should have stayed with Rennie. I drank the Kool-aid.
Agree with your sentiment about free to air, but how does rugby make that happen? Can it afford to scrap it's Stan deal?
I don't know. Feels like we've gone past the point of being able to take less money for long term strategy. The fact RA's broadcast deal is worth around $30m a year compared to $400m for the NRL and around $650m for the AFL illustrates how dire things are.
Super dire and RA is about to borrow another 60m or so from the bank as private equity has failed.
We were at the game. The players body language did not look good at the start of the second half. I know absolutely nothing about elite sport but from an organisation view there is something really wrong.
They clearly lost belief and I hate to admit it, but I turned it off at the 53 min mark. Not because it was a disgrace or I had anything better to do, but because it was so sad watching it unfold. Felt like I was watching a friend get executed.
I'm really worried about the players. The first half they tried things but the execution was not quite there. But 2nd half it was a different team. It's like they lost the belief in themselves and when you don't have that, it's always going to be tough to come back.
That was so evident watching. I wonder what happened in the sheds at half time. This is where not having Hooper or Cooper there was a big problem. It is not just what happens on the field. Experience and mentorship and holding the team 'tight' is so important. I really worry for all of them..and Eddy. Really bad to boo someone. He is human too...I think?
Eddie has brought this on himself and while we would have played better with those players there, I doubt we still wouldn’t have won the cup.
No. I agree but I wonder if having some more experience in the team would have helped them a bit psychologically dealing with the pressure and weight of expectation?
They had Slipper's, White, Tupou, Kerevi and Eddie's experience. But agree they would have done better with more. Just how much better is the question we'll never know the answer too.
100% Clare. They lost belief.
As a supporter for over 50 years have seen good and bad stuck through it all. However this is the lowest.
There will be some good long looks in the mirror.
From all that admin coach and players at Rugby Australia level.
Loins in 2 years then home RWC 2 years after that.
Re focus don’t sit on your hands
Start tomorrow
🏉GoYouGoodThing🏉
This is low, and unless those looks in the mirror are very long and hard... things could get lower.
Right on all fronts I think Ben. This is the rock bottom bit…up from here
Thanks Michael... and I hope it's rock bottom. But if we presume it is and that things will magically bounce back, they'll just get worse
BA, can we do something about getting rugby into the public schools. We've got hundreds of kids whose parents cant afford 30k a year for school. Instead of spending millions on Suaalii invest that getting qualified coaches into the primary schools when they are 10/11 years old.
Can we make junior club rugby the pinnacle and have our juniors all playing club rugby. Can we have the private schools work in alignment with RA to help the game rather than trying to win a stupid school premiership.
To early to call whether the Suaalii investment was worth it, but I hear ya. Although, Rugby is losing popularity in private schools too as AFL is played at Knox. We need to stem the bleeding.
Spot on here Phil!
The whole Public School V Private school should not be a thing anymore, but rugby is still known to be a private school sport. I'm not sure if there is much of a difference between the rego costs of league V union but I do know that junior soccer is significantly more experience than AFL rego because the AFL subsidise the junior registration.
I find it interesting that grass roots rely on volunteer parents to coach and will pay top dollar for their first grade seniors team coaches and players. Money is better invested in grassroots, so kids learn and enjoy the sport. It could be the difference in staying or leaving the sport. Taking match payments away from senior club rugby would mean you'd have players playing because they want to, not because they're getting paid to.
I totally agree Ben! Should not have changed the coach until after the WC.
Im shattered for the players who will cop the brunt of it 😭.
I think for RA to take a long hard look at themselves, this needed to happen. Sometimes ya need to hit rock bottom before getting back to the top.
Its not just lack if exposure. You rarely see super rugby on the news, 9 dont advertise well either. Im constantly telling people the Sat night super rugby fixture is on free to air (9gem) nobody knows about it. Not only does RA limit the capacity to gain new fans, they've just given current ones a motive to give up on rugby all together.
I won't give up. Support them through their highs and lows but RA need to take a long hard look at themselves and nothing will change until they do. It's obvious the issue isnt the coach or the chosen playing squad. But I also agree with Eddie, he needed a break between tenures.
Thanks Clare. Rugby needs more fans like you.
Who would want to coach Australia now? The last coach to leave the job on his own terms was Rod Macqueen
Good question
Thanks Ben. Awesome capture and brilliant early analysis. I particularly enjoyed the spiral views in respect to Rugby/Aussie Rules and the flexibility (or not) to tailor the games-strategies to Aussies that AFL has and RA possibly hasn’t
Cheers Johnny and I appreciate the reshare! Glad those graphs were useful.
There are two problems. One is short term and it is about how the Wallabies play and are coached. That is fixable as there are still enough quality players to make up a 30 person squad. The second is the structure and organisation of the game and that is far harder to fix. In the short term the Wallabies need a coherent game plan and, as Ireland demonstrated, that usually involves building on top of how your best province or region play. In their case they are like a super charged Leinster. New Zealand also play I. A style similar to their best super rugby sides. The Wallabies before Eddie at least had some hallmarks of the Brumbies with great lineout and mail etc. That DNA has been thrown out. Yesterday’s team had very few combinations in critical places which is also a hallmark of good sides. A build on the Brumbies pattern may not have won the World Cup but it would have been better than the shambles of yesterday. Selection is also a huge issue. Is there anyone out there who believes Donaldson is the top 10 in Australia? Ridiculous.
I agree on both fronts, but I think the long term issue needs to be addressed first. To often we've focused on short term fixes, and if we keep going at this rate of decline, we won't even qualify for 2043 world cup.
But on a happier note, can Scotland upset Ireland?
Extremely unlikely based on what we saw at the weekend. Scotland have as much skill as Ireland but their pack has more power and they have been able to suffocate Scotland’s creativity in recent outings. That will be so hard to combat. However, I will be in the stadium doing my own bit to encourage the lads to make a bit of history!
Ben I truely believe we are now a bona fide tier 2 nation and we need to act and think like one. It’s hard cause we all remember what it was like being on top of the world. Questions I want answers to:
Q1) How much benefit do we get from being cleaned up by NZ 3 times / year.
Q2) why do we need 5 super Rugby teams.
Q3) this is a performance related business and the complete board need to go. (Maybe that was more of a statement).
I agree John and it won't be long before we struggle to qualify for the world cup if things don't change. Just ask Canada or the USA.
Q1. Very little outside of tickets sales for the home match.
Q2. We don't
Q3. That might be necessary
Clare, I've got kids that play Rugby, AFL & League on the Gold Coast. Our son is u14 this year. There was no u14 Gold Coast competition this year, there was no u15 competition this year. Kids needed to travel to Brisbane twice a week to train and then again on Sunday to play. The u14 league competition on the coast has 3 Divisions.
Why would parents with their busy lives drive 75 minutes in traffic 3 times a week to play Union when their kids can drive 5 minutes down the road to play League. Well we are one of the "stupid" parents who drove our kid to Brisbane to play rugby because he loves the game, we also have him enrolled at school in Brisbane because he loves the game.
We would love for there to be viable options where we live but there isn't. In terms of costs, we found AFL to be the most expensive at over $450 for the season this was almost $100 more expensive than the Rugby fees.
BA please use your influence/contacts to really push the importance of club rugby. It must be our primary source of talent ID moving forward.
I hear ya Phil but I'm not hopeful things will change.
Gutted.
But I'm also a bit sick of it all to be honest. The constant negativity surrounding the Wallabies (not from you obviously) is draining.
Makes the whole thing even worse in my view. It is my fault for reading all the press - I am close to having a media blackout!
Some of the press have a lot to answer for. Instead of writing about the positives it seems to be one negative article after another. This time last year they were writing about Rennie’s coaching record without any recognition of where the team had come from and what they had achieved, e.g. only team to come close to beating France and Ireland last year. The team and the game are in much better shape than it would appear. Consigning some of the press to the gossip pages won’t happen but that is where some of them belong.
I agree and the press didn't share Eddie's explanations for how and why he is trying to change how the team is playing. Instead they just focused on the drama, and Eddie should have kept up his podcast so he could have spoken to fans directly.
So draining, but Eddie contributed to that.
True - I think it's the whole media machine (not just rugby) that's broken.
Something happens -> someone writes an article -> someone comments on a podcast about what happened -> someone writes an article about the podcast comment -> podcast comment article is raised at press conference -> new article written about coach response to podcast comment.
It's all needless crap, that doesn't provide meaningful value to anyone's life. Just more negativity, because negativity gets clicks.
Yesterday I blocked theroar, smh, watoday and reddit on my phone and laptop. Feels good to be disconnected!
One advantage of PTSD (and I'm not being flippant here) is that you struggle to get passionate about anything: up or down. So I am sad but not devastated, disappointed but not surprised. It feels like there has been a 20-year quest for a sugar hit which always led to the inevitable. And AFL has been patiently building for all that time, taking incremental wins until - bang - overnight success.
Agree with that summation. Searching for sugar hits and rather than eating our vegetables.
100% & good to be on the same page with you again!
Thanks mate. This page is getting pretty full....
Spot on ! I’m looking forward to that drink !
So am I James!
Last week anger. This week complete despair but an accurate reflection of where the game is at in Australia. Shame as the Ireland South Africa game was epic.
Australians seem more attracted to games that no one else plays and that we can control. It has been a unique development over the past 10 years and does not look like stopping.
I don’t realise that it was a captains call. His head has to roll. There is a lot of solid rugby knowledge on that board.
I don’t know if it was a captains call either