New selector's comments on Quade Cooper should scare all Wallabies fans
Incoming Wallabies selector Michael O’Connor has outlined what pragmatic playmaker Quade Cooper must do to re-earn Wallabies selection.
“There are still areas in his game he needs work on and if he can improve those, well then he’ll be in the reckoning,” O’Connor said.
“I would be very surprised if Michael [Cheika] didn’t agree with that.
“At Test level though you can’t be throwing blind passes. You can’t be taking risks at the line.”
As vague as the statement is, there isn’t much at face value Cooper can take away from that and hopefully conversations behind closed doors reveal more to him. The message seems to be that Cooper must take fewer risks, not make better decisions and execute.
“You can’t be taking risks at the line” is the most concerning thing to hear in particular.
Any ball-player needs to play at the line in order to create. That is the only way to challenge defenders and open holes with a passing game. That is what Johnny Sexton does for Ireland. Joe Schmidt is designing plays to put Sexton in position to ball-play and take risks, albeit delicately calculated, at the line.
It is almost the entire foundation of their attacking game – Sexton’s job is to create line breaks to win attacking field position, halfback Conor Murray’s job is to land the killer blows inside the 22.
Outside of that, you must have game-breaking athletes like Israel Folau or Stuart Hogg to break the line, who can shed tackles and do it all by oneself, something the 30-year-old Cooper isn’t going to do.
The Wallabies have struggled with this ‘early wide ball’ philosophy under Cheika, hoping that their athletes can make something happen by hopelessly spinning wide through the halves that do nothing but add more depth to the play by standing deep and shoveling deeper.
Trying to go around defences has only resulted in continually going backward for the Wallabies in recent years. The international game is so tight now with the advancement of defence, space is at a premium. You have to be smarter about how you create space in this age, which we have only really seen the Wallabies do in the Salta miracle game when the game plan ‘was thrown out the window’ at halftime against Argentina. They played direct and passed flat to runners hitting gaps and made a historic comeback that likely saved Cheika’s job. Israel Folau’s best plays for the Wallabies are now coming from running a hard line outside a pod, hitting a change-up ball flat at pace at the line, showing how it’s done.
Cooper should be encouraged to play at the line, and better yet, play should be designed to manufacture situations where the odds of him finding success are higher. You scheme the ‘where and when’, aim to create overlaps and personnel mismatches, live and die on him making the right read, review and learn from the mistakes, adjust and try again.
It’s not about taking fewer risks, it’s about minimising risk and putting odds in your favour for maximising reward, and actually, use his playmaking and game-changing talents. If Cooper is put in as another robotic distributor in Cheika’s system, it will do nothing to improve the Wallabies play.
We have seen him play a conservative ‘distributor’ role in the Wallabies before under Cheika. In a 2016 Bledisloe Cup match, in one of his last games against the All Blacks, Quade Cooper was given the start in Wellington by Cheika, with Bernard Foley moving to 12.
It was the most un-Quade test match seen and resulted in the Wallabies losing 29-9. He did not fire a shot the whole match, instead, going through the motions of programming Cheika’s pattern as a passer with his feet in cement blocks and a shovel in his hands.
He played his instructed role, took no risk and they went nowhere. He finished with a total of two running metres, passing 14 times and running four, although most of these carries were taking it to ground in the face of pressure. There are genuine concerns about his decision-making at times, but Cooper’s worst test matches aren’t always the result of taking obscene risks, it’s usually when the basics start to go wrong – dropping high balls in the backfield, kicking out on the full of the restart, which are execution errors.
Hopefully these throwaway comments by Michael O’Connor are meaningless air, but it’s all too familiar and illustrative of Australian Rugby’s inability to find and develop a new international flyhalf – they don’t know what to look for or how to use one, and certainly telling a flyhalf not to take risks at the line is scary advice for a team that finished with their worst attacking year on record.
Michael Hooper ahead of Sunwolves:
Comments on RugbyPass
Wow, that’s incredible. Great for rugby.
1 Go to commentsYou probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
12 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
1 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
1 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
16 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
16 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
4 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
3 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
16 Go to comments