Wallaroos coach: Black Ferns score isn’t ‘a reflection of where we’re at’

What the hell is he talking about, “the score doesn't reflect where we are at?” Of course the score reflects where they are at.

This just shows that he's a really poor coach. He can't identify why his team constantly fails to deliver and why specifically they always fall away on around the 50 minute mark of matches. He's taking literally zero ownership for it.

If you're always only in it for half the game then the result absolutely proves how far away from competitive you are.

And what I find so disappointing about the last 4 weeks is that they have demonstrated literally zero improvement from where they were at during the world cup.

It isn't the losing nor is it even the margin of defeat. The disappointment is that every loss is coming for the exact same reasons.

They get bullied up front and are unable to retain the ball then their decision making goes out the window so when they do finally get the ball they can't do anything with it.

And this becomes a vicious cycle where then compound errors and ill discipline creep in causing the team to basically give up and surrender, hence the late game blow outs.

The forwards are simply not hard enough nor determined enough. And the backs have no ability to step in and cover at the break down or around the ruck when the forwards haven't arrived yet.

The defence is very soft and gives way far too easily. That's largely because the defensive side of the game is being ignored in favour of trying to turn the Roos into a 7s-like highlight reel.

Far too much focus has been put on trying to get the ball wide to space without any understanding of how you actually translate that into games.

The only times the ball ever actually gets out to the wing is when the opponent makes a mistake that leaves them short handed or unable to pressure the play of the ball.

The set piece is absolutely shot and the lineout isn't much better. They have very poor maul defence and the counter rucking is completely ineffectual.

And the problem now is that because they're all going to separate into their clubs for the next 3 months any learning that might have been possible is going to be lost.

There was very little quality demonstrated by the Roos at all for these last 4 weeks. The game against Fijiana feels like it was simply meant to be a confidence booster before facing 3 sides they were going to struggle against.

There was no other purpose to playing that game. And it really made no positive difference other than allowing the coach to claim a 1-3 record.

Instead, I feel like it masked a lot of deep issues that exist inside the squad which appeared during the world cup and have not been addressed in the 8 months or so to this point.

There is no trust in this team and there's no genuine belief. Every positive spin they try to put on things just prevents acknowledgement and acceptance of where they're failing and why.

And without having a serious proper review they will never actually get better. Claiming that it was a little bit of ill discipline one week and a little bit of poor execution the next that cost you is literally waving it off.

Discipline isn't a separate thing from everything else. It's a product of your ability to remain emotionally in control because you're able to implement your training and deploy your skills in the way you want to.

You absolutely can still make mistakes but the compounding effect that the Roos constantly suffer in games is because they're no longer in control of themselves.

They have neither the trust in each other or the process to keep grafting away until they get a result nor do they possess the belief that they can actually compete against the top sides.

Over the next 4 years they really need to start banking some results against higher ranked opposition. This means that they need to seriously start analyzing other teams and working out why whenever they play them they keep losing for the same reasons.

Until they do the program has achieved nothing and pretending that they're improving because in this one off game they did slightly better on the scoreboard than in last one off game is literally delusion.