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Not ideal preparation: Australia
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with Australia, contingency planning, a curious coaching situation and Lions tour stay-at-home entertainment...
It's hardly a secret that this Lions tour represents the best chance the tourists have had of bringing home a series victory since Geech's 1997 vintage came away with the spoils from South Africa, but the extent of the disarray of the opposition is now becoming clearer every week.
The ARU is mired in financial uncertainty, worried at the lack of sponsorship for the Lions tour. There is publicly-voiced concern that Australia's brightest stars will be on pay cuts sooner or later.
There is the Kurtley Beale issue, which threatens to rob the Wallabies of one of their finest game-changing talents.
There is a very public rift between the coach incumbent and his would-be successor over how best to utilise the people's choice for fly-half of the national team, not to mention that fly-half's not-so-distant dismissal of the Wallabies' team atmosphere as 'toxic'.
Injuries are mounting too, with David Pocock already ruled out, Digby Ioane and George Smith looking doubtful and Tatafu Polota-Nau praying his bones heal quickly.
Yup, Australia are in trouble. And the Lions players are looking mighty sharp in training...
A central theme of many a book or interview written or given by All Blacks of the 2007 era is drop-goals. More pertinently, the failure to plan for or execute a drop-goal when it is absolutely needed. It's not a secret that it was a motivation behind Graham Henry's burning desire to have every last detail planned in advance, leading up to 2011.
Most teams have learned, but not, it seems, Clermont. For ten minutes they hurled themselves against the Toulon wall on Saturday, yet not once did there seem to be any kind of co-ordinated team movement designed to put themselves in the right position.
The one attempt was a clumsy one off slow ball, badly-delivered to a poor fly-half position. Otherwise, it was a repeat of that 2007 quarter-final all over again: extraordinary disciplined defence, disbelief on the part of the attack that they just couldn't get their own way, not enough preparation into plan B.
Which is what cost the Auvergnats their Heineken dream. A shame too, for after Delon Armitage's little sideshow during his try, you would have loved to have seen it rammed back down his smug little throat.
Heard the one about the fly-half who saw his position in the national team under serious and credible threat from a young upstart (and didn't like it one jot)? About how the upstart went on to become an even better player than the fly-half had been? And then about how the fly-half eventually became the upstart's coach?
How interesting is that dynamic going to be between Jonathan Sexton and Ronan O'Gara at Racing Metro next season?! It's no secret there was little love lost between the two during the battle for primacy of Ireland's number ten jersey, nor that public opinion favoured Sexton for much of the time O'Gara was first choice. Both swear blind there is friendship now, but old habits die hard.
Being as Sexton was generally outplaying O'Gara on many an occasion, you have to wonder how able Sexton is going to be at taking advice, or to whose tactics they will end up playing at crucial moments.
Sexton is virtually nailed-on to be number one fly-half on the Lions tour - something else O'Gara never quite got to. If that all works out fine and the Lions win, O'Gara is going to be in a no-win situation from the start at Racing. Doubtless he has much to pass on, but he may just have started his coaching career at the one place where he should have said no!
Finally, with the Lions tour coming up once more, the mystery Welsh twitterman Dai Lama has come up with another of his beer games to make life for those unable to tour in Oz just a little less miserable.
Read all about it here - and remember, these are early kick-offs...
Loose Pass compiled by Richard Anderson
Comments
startledwombat says...
Hi Trinats
mizlist @ optusnet . com. au
glad you're playing!
Worse than you feared, I'm afraid. I'm in Melbourne!
Posted 13:42 03rd June 2013
Trinats2 says...
startledwombat
Mate I'll donate my $5 from my winnings to put towards your flight to come home. Or are you a new Australian living on the "kiwi Coast" Qld ?
Posted 22:57 25th May 2013
new_j4a says...
@APV1 and NHsaints, Guys, I'm from the colonies and so I don't understand all this sophisticated stuff you know from Fleet Street and all, but isn't "Loose Pass" supposed to be an Op-Ed Article? I'm not sure, being brought up partly in the bush and all, but doesn't that Op-Ed stuff stand for Opinion-Editorial? Just asking...I probably have it all wrong.....
Posted 21:10 23rd May 2013
startledwombat says...
Trinats2
> they dont have a chance
No chance at all? Even as an Australian I am happy to take you on. Here is my $5 and the 1000 - to - 1 odds you are offering are too good to pass up.
(Let's face it, 1,000 to 1 is far more generous than "no chance at all". I could easily have put this at 10,000 to 1. Still much better than "no chance at all" or even "a million to one". So trust me, I am doing you a favour).
I like the possibility of $5k from you, for a mere $5 down from me.
So if you'd like to put your money where your mouth is, please just reply to this thread and then I will send you my contact details.
Looking forward to the Lions series!
Posted 00:09 23rd May 2013
kybone says...
On the O'Gara/Sexton thing- what exactly are we saying, that you can only be coached by someone who was a better player than you? So who coaches Dan Carter? Who coaches Roger Federer? Who coaches Tiger Woods? Anyone can be a good coach. Its about looking at someones technique and giving them tips on how to improve, not actually being able to do it better then them.
Posted 14:57 22nd May 2013
APV1 says...
Regarding ROG, didn't someone once suggest that,
"If you can't do, teach."
;-)
@ Richard Anderson - "A shame too, for after Delon Armitage's little sideshow during his try, you would have loved to have seen it rammed back down his smug little throat."
Really? You call that journalism? It's one thing to voice an opinion and promote debate, but don't you think you've gone a bit far with that one?
Posted 15:42 21st May 2013
7ton says...
Trinats
Yup! and if the Lions do win you will be using all of what PR has written here as an excuse!!!!
Posted 15:16 21st May 2013
Trinats2 says...
"Yup, Australia are in trouble. And the Lions players are looking mighty sharp in training... "
Mate, get off your horse, its a long fall down under !. A second string wallaby side beat Wales and England in the UK (maybe you need more Irish and Scots in the side !!). When the Lions come downunder they dont have a chance, maybe in the first test (like last time) but Wallabies will be using it as a warm up for the real rugby, even with our "toxic" coach !!!
Posted 12:18 21st May 2013
olepete says...
Nasty little hit at Armitage, I thought hr deserved a bit of a display in the circumstances, even though I favoured Clermont.
Posted 10:38 21st May 2013
jamesliveinhope says...
I thought that ROG had gone as kicking coach which, in my opinion was one of his strengths.
I remember that Bath managed to borrow Neil Jenkins for a little while before the WRU decided that there were too many English players benefitting from his experience.
Kicking coaches coach how to kick not when, it'll be the other coaches that coach fly-halfedness.
Posted 08:38 21st May 2013
cuw3100 says...
Well it may be a correct assessment that CA did not plan for a DG, because before BJ was replaced at 10, they had a good platform to go for it (with a little bit of thinking), but somehow wasted that chance.
Infact I think JW dropped one in the semi from a simillar position and distance , but as PR says it was not in the CA plans.
Posted 04:51 21st May 2013
NHsaints says...
Wow, whoever wrote this article made his personal opinions well known...but anyway I think O'gara will definitely be able to help sexton in terms of his kicking but O'gara isn't just there for sexton, he's there for all the backs.
Posted 18:03 20th May 2013
philipjfry says...
Almost beats the my favourite version of the Star Wars drinking game.
http://www.webtender.com/handbook/games/starwars.game
Posted 17:37 20th May 2013
BackingLeinster says...
@munkian
there's only one spare kidney floating around at the moment and trust me you dont want him.
Posted 16:51 20th May 2013
munkian says...
I'm going to need a kidney transplant on standby....
Posted 15:54 20th May 2013
leinster_goy says...
i've watched enough rugby to know that the aussies can never be written off playing at home, no matter how many injuries they have. they never know when to throw the towel in, and are especially dangerous when their backs are against the wall. like a convict breaking his way out of the clink. that spotlight flashes onto him, blinding his eyes, but he keeps running. the sniper nicks him on the ankle, but he hobbles on. the razor-sharp barbed wire cuts his hands up badly...but he manages to hoist himself over that wall, by hook or by crook. "gatty" and his welsh funboys surely know that by now. no amount of prancing in training or homoerotic freezer-room sessions are going to help the Lions if the same mistakes the taffs made are repeated
broadly agree with richard anderson's narrative of the Sexy-ROG malarkey. although "upstart" is a strange way to describe Sexto here. it seems to me that any petty rivalry, to the extent that it existed, came mostly on o'gara's side. anyhoo, don't see why it matters now since they apparently buried the hatchet a while ago and should have a good relationship at racing (as long as ROG isn't his defence coach of course)
Posted 15:47 20th May 2013
rockman says...
Skrelas drop goal attempt baffled me. He was just so shallow you thought they wouldn't even bother with a dg and go for the 7 or at least 5 but then he fluffs it into a block down? horrific!
Posted 14:05 20th May 2013
carpelone says...
The usual Poms. A mighty Army before the battle, glorious losers on the pitch.
Posted 14:03 20th May 2013