Australia 0 - Ireland 4

With regard to the game against Ireland, I have to admit two things. First, I didn't watch it in the most propitious of circumstances because I was cooped up in a small motel room at Narrabri during a Melbourne to Brisbane drive. That circumstance may have impaired my judgment a tad. Second, I am usually loathe to get too critical in general and particularly at a personal level, but on this occasion I bloody am!

I thought the display against Ireland was one of the worst I've ever witnessed. I won't present a litany of the bad, suffice it to say that little skill or passion was displayed and that completely inept would be a good summary. The TV shots of the coach (LS) on the sidelines gave the same impression. Something's not right in the state of Denmark.

I promised no litany but what my daughter said was spot on. The team did the same boring, predictable things time and again (and most of those not very well) and not one of them had the wit to try something different. And that IS selection and coaching. Most good, let alone successful teams have one or two players, not always the captain, who have the intestinal fortitude to say, in essence: "this isn't working, bugger what the coach said, we'll do it this way for a while". Or things to that effect. D'you think players like that would ever make current teams or squads?? That is selection and coaching.

Now to personal anecdote but completely related in my view. My son was "Academy" trained and "Rep" coached for nigh on five years. Meritorious though this was and is, I soon formed the impression and have it ever more strongly now, that this system is a double edged sword. The good side is that it has definitely raised base standards. I'm seeing U11 - U13s doing things now that were never evident even ten tears ago. However, the cost has been that it has tended to turn out robots who HAVE to play to instruction and when things don't go right - they've nowhere to go. Witness the against-Ireland effort to see the culmination of that trend.

When I've voiced these concerns, I haven't found anyone to disagree (and I don't think that I'm so frightening that people would automatically concur!) - including a couple of fellows who have coached in this environment. Forget creativity, nurturing difference, taking chances. In turn, I believe that some coaches are frightened to be different or take chances, so why the bloody hell would any of the players?

My final comment in this vituperative diatribe is to pose the question - what recent Australian player, having fully 'gone through the system' has ventured abroad and really 'set the world on fire'? How many 'languish' in relative, if well paid, obscurity in so-so teams or on benches? With the numbers we turn out who are 'quite good' wouldn't you expect one or two absolute 'gems'? Porcine posteriors.

To re-work a saying of a 'different one": it's always about winning or losing and never about glory and style. In that condition, we lose more often than not and not just on the scoreboard.


written by wilsong@uq.net.au