A ”brutally honest” review of the Wallabies disastrous 2005 season has highlighted a raft of shortcomings that must be overcome by a new coach if Australia is to have a chance in the 2007 World Cup, team officials said on Friday.
Australian Rugby Union (ARU) chief Gary Flowers said the review of the past season, in which the Wallabies lost eight of their nine last matches, was nearing completion and had already influenced selectors tasked with picking a replacement for sacked coach Eddie Jones.
He said a statistical analysis of the Wallaby performance compared to that of their rivals had confirmed the team’s defensive strengths, but provided a ”reality check” about many offensive weaknesses.
”If we are to be brutally honest, we are significantly behind many of our competitors in key areas of the game,” he said.
”We remain number one in areas like defence but elsewhere — restarts, offloads, lineouts and scrummaging — we are deficient compared with our major rivals,” he said.
Before he was sacked at the end of the season, Jones had frequently declared that the injury-plagued Wallabies were close to overcoming their weaknesses and would be a force to reckon with by the 2007 World Cup in France.
But Flowers said the review had found otherwise.
”What this review is telling us is that we are not simply one win away from getting things right,” he said.
The ARU statistics showed the Wallabies ranked just 10th in winning their own lineouts and fifth in stealing their opponents’ lineouts.
They ranked sixth in getting quality ball from scrums, seventh in restart receptions and sixth in offloads.
On the other side of the balance sheet, the Australians ranked first in creating line breaks and in tackle contest dominance in both attack and defence.
Flowers said the ARU was confident the new Wallaby coach — due to be named next month and widely expected to be former Queensland Reds coach John Connolly — would be able to sort out the team’s problems.
”The clock is ticking but we will put the right structure and the right coaching team in place to put the Wallabies in a winning position for 2007,” he said.
”The good news is we know where we have to improve and we now have the platform to ensure that we do improve.”
The final review will be presented to the ARU board when it meets in late February, he said. – Sapa-AFP