Wallabies

Each week we here at G&GR select our Wallaby Team of the Week. Rather obviously, this is the best performed Australian players of Dan Herbert - a great Wallaby 13 the previous weekend’s Super 14 Rugby. What we’ve found is that there is yet to be a player to rise up to the challenge and stake a claim for the outside centre jersey with a consistent set of dominant performances. One problem for the selectors (both our amateur ones and the Wallabies’ professional ones) is that at least two of the...Read Full Story

Half way into this year’s Tri-Nations and I’m not sure I’ve sensed a more pessimistic mood among Wallaby supporters since, well since the darkest days of Eddie Jones (or maybe post that event in Marseille 2007?). A record losing streak against the All Blacks has taken the rugby public’s relationship with Kiwi Robbie into a “sticking together for the kids” phase. And you can see why. As eminent rugby brains like Bob Dwyer and Lance Free have pointed out, the standard of play in these last...Read Full Story

Where were we in 94: The Boks had the Hollywood ending. Even though the IRB rankings didn’t really come into effect until somewhere around 2003, if you apply the same formula historically, as Pick and Go does so well, you will find something rather surprising.  Australia was ranked the #1 team in the world in June of 1994.   I guess I shouldn’t find this too shocking. After all we were the reigning World Champions and followed that up quickly with Bledisloe Cup win in 92 and a series win...Read Full Story

A characteristic of the Deans era Wallabies is their seeming inability to sustain their performance over the full 80 minutes of a game. This raises the question of whether their training methods are appropriate for the intense physical demands of modern international rugby. In short, is there enough emphasis on strength training? It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from the team’s patchy performances in the June Tests as quality of the opposition and the effects of long distance...Read Full Story

Wallaby supporters would hardly have been filled with confidence for the upcoming Tr-Nations by the performance against Ireland. The Wallabies had 145 phases from the 50 times they commenced a possession sequence.  Yet they were only able to make five line breaks and score two tries (one of which was an intercept).  The Irish had 82 phases from the 42 times they commenced a possession sequence yet they were only able to make two line breaks and scored no tries.  Hardly entertaining rugby...Read Full Story