Post World Cup teams and excuses for failure.

After the World Cup Nations tend to suffer a raft of retirements. Especially the 3 Nations teams with many of their players looking to come to Europe or Japan to top up their pensions before retiring. Almost all the coaches who survive the world Cup will start talking about "rebuilding" but looking at the teams that generally start the first 6 Nations after the World Cup and the team that starts the first World Cup game in the next 4 years you see two thirds of the team have changed. Do you guys think the "4 year cycle" is a myth and that the term "rebuilding" is just an excuse coaches use to justify failure in the hope of holding on top their jobs.

The only real example of "rebuilding" I can find from a Welsh perspective is after the 1995 World Cup when Wales lost Tony Clement, Mike Rayer, Mike Hall, Ricky Evans, Mike Griffiths, Stuart Davies, Paul Arnold, Tony Copsey, Adrian Davies, Simon Hill, Robert Jones, Greg Prosser, Mark Bennett, Andrew Moore, David Evans, Stuart Roy, Rupert Moon among others to retirement and a major rebuilding excercise.

Though even using the "young guns" Welsh team of 1996 few of them were still in the squad come the 1999 World Cup.

Well in our case it is more a situation of hanging on for too long with certain players.

2/3 of our squad was at RWC 2007.

I'm not really a fan of radical rebuilds for the sake of it. There's an awful lot of rugby to be played between WCs, and whilst WCs are important, they are not the sole reason for international rugby.

Coaches should always just pick the best players based on a combination of ability and form (and style, if looking to play a certain brand of rugby). I don't think age is particularly important personally, and reputation certainly isn't.

I've seen lots of English posters for example planning a post-WC future without Nick Easter. I think it's difficult to know whether or not he'll be good enough to play for England come 2012, but he certainly is now, and I'm not sure what's going to change between now and then.

Everyone says that Ireland will suffer as all their players retire fall out of the team after the World Cup.

Wallace and possibly O'Callaghan are the only real changes I see to the starting XV. However I think the extended squad will include guys like McAllister, Hagan, Murray and Jones with Horan, Hayes, Stringer and G.Murphy going out.

I expect it to be 2013 before any real changes are seen.

I agree with you, funnyExiledScot. I wouldn't like to see us (or anyone else) ditch a player after this World Cup on the grounds that he won't make the next - if he's the best in his position, he should be playing.

I think we'll lose Hines and Parks after the WC (to focus on club careers), and possibly Jacobsen (although I think AR will be able to persuade him to stick around for another season or so).

CP is the other veteran, but I think he'll just play on until he's no longer selected. He's a pretty committed guy, and I think he'll see out his career at Edinburgh now, then go into coaching.

Accordingly I think there'll be very few changes to the Scotland set-up. Godman or Weir will come in for Parks, I think Fraser MacKenzie at Sale will come in for Hines, if Jacobsen goes it's a straight shoot between Grant and Welsh at Glasgow or Traynor at Edinburgh, and if CP goes, there's Rory Lamont, Jack Cuthbert or Jim Thompson waiting.

Looking at the 2nd part of the OP's question, 'excuses for failure', we canny Scots have taken the liberty of appointing an Englishman as head coach, who right now is the saviour, but could easily become the scapegoat, in the event of a disastrous Scottish RWC campaign!!

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Looking at the 2nd part of the OP's question, 'excuses for failure', we canny Scots have taken the liberty of appointing an Englishman as head coach, who right now is the saviour, but could easily become the scapegoat, in the event of a disastrous Scottish RWC campaign!!

To be honest Gatland and Kidney have similar critics waiting in the wings. NZ are always good for an excuse too

In NZ's case we lost a huge amount of players after 07. Was actually expecting Springbok domination that year instead of the year following it and was really impressed with the All Blacks' achievements in 08.

I worry about the Boks for the same reason Biltong. Hopefully Lambie gets a run soon. I can see the Aussies taking the Bledisloe next year.

I always think it's a sad thing when a guy who is on top of his game and the obvious first pick for a side is benched on the basis that "he won't be around in four years time". But my feelings on the RWC and it's impact on the rich traditions of rugby are well known, and I can't make the point strongly without risk of "making excuses" for potential AB failure to win this year. I'll have to wait until November

TheGreyGhost wrote:I always think it's a sad thing when a guy who is on top of his game and the obvious first pick for a side is benched on the basis that "he won't be around in four years time". But my feelings on the RWC and it's impact on the rich traditions of rugby are well known, and I can't make the point strongly without risk of "making excuses" for potential AB failure to win this year. I'll have to wait until November

For what its worth I agree with you entirely about not picking a player in his prime on the basis that he won't be there in future.

I can see the Aussies taking the Bledisloe next year..

Strangely, i agree with you. As with most Wallaby supporters I never "expect" to win against the All Blacks. I always believe we have a chance, however slight but for next year at least i reckon we have a better than even chance of coming out on top. Most of the Wallaby team is young and several key retirements from the All Blacks may provide that once-in-a-decade or so experience for us of being better than the AB's for a season. And Quade Cooper will have fully estalished himself as the premier no 10 of all time.
Heard a rumour that SBW is heading back to the NRL to play for the Roosters

Agree I think out of all the top sides, and for a change, the Wallabies should be among the least impacted in terms of player loss post RWC. I guess the price they pay for this was the 3 years of pain from 2007 to 2009, with 2010 showing some signs of a brighter future. Remember blokes like O'Connor are 21 years old and Genia, Cooper, Beale, Pocock are in the 21-23 age bracket. Arguably they will be around for up to 2 more RWCs, and maybe even 3 after this one is done.

Biafra
so when you heard the rumour,did you hear what Sonny Bill is doing next year???????

Biafra
so when you heard the rumour,did you hear what Sonny Bill is doing next year???????.

nope. My mate's missus works with the Roosters team and the buzz amongst the players was that he's coming there. As i said, a rumour, nothing more.

The world cup certainly tests your youth program.

I think players need to take more responsibility for the sake of the national side. In England's case, we know that the likes of Wilko, Tindall, Hape, Flutey etc will not be around come WC2015, so I would like them to take the initiative and take themselves out of the running. This gives a coach enough time to find his best players around which to base a gameplan that was lacking to such an extent after both the 2003 and 2007 WCs.

bathmad wrote:I think players need to take more responsibility for the sake of the national side. In England's case, we know that the likes of Wilko, Tindall, Hape, Flutey etc will not be around come WC2015, so I would like them to take the initiative and take themselves out of the running. This gives a coach enough time to find his best players around which to base a gameplan that was lacking to such an extent after both the 2003 and 2007 WCs.

I completely disagree with everything you've written here.

Players should be picked if they're good enough. It's not for players to dictate when that is to international coaches. I don't like players "retiring from International rugby" in any event.

I think coaches should take responsibility for the teams that they are coaching. The failures after 2003 and 2007 were because the coaches at the time failed to pick players on merit, and picked on reputation. Nothing more than that.

Playing players that has had no or very little experience playing at a high level.
Big step-up International rugby is.

Big step-up International rugby is

Yep. International Rugby is all about one thing.

Applying pressure.

Taylorman wrote:Big step-up International rugby is

Yep. International Rugby is all about one thing.

Applying pressure.

Yep! and some of these players aint played in a pressure game yet, but according to some on this forum, they are Internationals or are they?
Lets have another poll to find out!

I'm not sure if World Cups test your youth program. It tests strength in depth but these are different things.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I'm not sure if World Cups test your youth program. It tests strength in depth but these are different things.

So true!
The world cup is not the place to blood your inexperienced youth.

There aer two slightly different issues at play here:
1 - Players hanging on until after an RWC to retire
2 - The transition and rebuilding of teams towards the next tournament in 4 years time.

In England's case, we are generally not that old a team, but there are a few guys who I think fall under #1 - Thompson, Wilkinson, Tindall (and Shaw if selected). Don't see them making themselves available for selection for the 6Ns early next year. Of those, only Tinds is a probable starter in a first choice XV, so I don't see majr surgery to the team in the short term

As for the player who won't make it to the next RWC, we have: Moody + Fourie, Easter, Hape + Flutey (possibly Sheridan, as much through persistent and cumulative injury as age). These guys can be replaced gradually over the next 2 seasons, and fortunately the guys likely to come in as replacements for Easter (Crane or Narraway), Moody/Fourie (Rees or Wood) and Sheridan (Corbisiero) already have some international experience, so these changes can be made based on form and fitness. The only position where we have unproven strength is at inside centre, where Barritt, Allen and 36 all have ability at club level but have not yet had the opportunity to demonstrate that this can be transferred to the international stage. This is probably the position I would be looking to experiment with a little more from at least next year's AIs (given we are likely to be blooding a new outside centre in this year's 6Ns).

Oh, and England's excuses for failure at the RWC are easy:
1 - Our team came together too late in the day to be strong enough, but watch out in 2015
or
2 - All the foreign mercenaries didn't play with enough passion for the jersey

England's excuses for failure -

The worst centres in the competition
A starting no 8 who couldn't get into any other 6 nation side bar Wales
A imbalanced backrow.
Picking foreign journeyman like Hape,Flutey,Waldrom and Fourie.
Picking players past their prime/mediocre - Payne,Shaw,Worsley.
Going for so called experience instead of in form young talent.
Lack of a gameplan to break down the one dimensional tactics of Scotland and Argentina.
Being too slow and not dynamic enough.
Gutless coaches and team manager.
Off form halfbacks

Yeah, ok Beshocked, but apart from that...

The worst centres in the competition - A slight exageration, but yes, I think we all know that it is probably the weakest area of the team (although watching how we played in the 6Ns, most ouf our good attacking rugby bypassed the centres anyway, and their job was to be first to the breakdown)

A starting no 8 who couldn't get into any other 6 nation side bar Wales - on last season's form, he'd also have made the Scotland and France teams.

A imbalanced backrow. - I actually quite like the back row of Croft, Moody, Easter, especially with the current law interpretation.

Picking foreign journeyman like Hape,Flutey,Waldrom and Fourie - only Hape will start, and that we've already mentioned regarding centres

Picking players past their prime/mediocre - Payne,Shaw,Worsley. Of those, I think only Shaw is a reasonable bet to make the final 30 (if we take 4 2nd row players). Indeed, over the last couple of years MJ has blooded several youngsters who have taken over from the likes of Payne and Worsley.

Going for so called experience instead of in form young talent. - Other than at centre, where would you say this is happening?

Lack of a gameplan to break down the one dimensional tactics of Scotland and Argentina. - We haven't seen these yet

Being too slow and not dynamic enough. - Go and watch our good performances of last year (Australia, Italy)

Gutless coaches and team manager. - MJ has shown over the last 18 months a lot more boldness in selection than he is usually creditted with, and you'd hardly call the game plan we adopted last season as conservative.

Off form halfbacks - Again, hasn't happened yet.

A starting no 8 who couldn't get into any other 6 nation side bar Wales

Hey, we don't want him either...

dummy half these are excuses that will be used if we crash out early.

The off form halfbacks hasn't happened yet but it could. Lack of gameplan will be mentioned if we lose to Argentina and Scotland.

Shaw will be 38 in September. I would prefer Botha,Attwood or Borthwick.

Easter is definitely not better than Harinorduquoy or Beattie!

Why even pick Worsley and Payne though? Better to give squad spots to young guns if there is no chance of them being picked.

You can't just ignore how woeful our centres are.

At FB Goode or Brown should be in the squad.

At no 8 Narraway or Dowson instead of Waldrom.

Anyone instead of the overrated Fourie.

I don't know what Fourie has done to be picked unless being in the top 10 in the AP for missed tackles is a criteria. On that basis no surprise Manu is there too.

Looks like Graham Henry is getting his excuse’s in already


Link: Graham Henry wary of All Blacks burnout for World Cup

Sorry couldn’t resist

red_stag wrote:Everyone says that Ireland will suffer as all their players retire fall out of the team after the World Cup.

Wallace and possibly O'Callaghan are the only real changes I see to the starting XV. However I think the extended squad will include guys like McAllister, Hagan, Murray and Jones with Horan, Hayes, Stringer and G.Murphy going out.

I expect it to be 2013 before any real changes are seen.

I agree stag that there won't be many changes but I think it will be the extended squad rather than the 1st xv we will see the changes. I think unless Wallace and DOC decide to retire then they'll still be in and around the 1st XV.

I agree though that we will see the end of Stringer, Cullen, Murphy, Hayes, Jennings, MOD and possible Horan, Flannery and maybe Ferris and Wallace too.

We'll certainly see more of Jones, Murray, Keatley, Spence, McCallister, Donnacha Ryan, Touhy, Gilroy etc. Strauss may end up in the mix for the 2 jersey too.

Isn't Jennings only 30? Any why Ferris? Are you speculating that he won't get over his injuries?