PDA

View Full Version : Stuart: I'll make Tests just like Origin



DIEHARD
09-04-06, 11:46 PM
I'll make Tests just like Origin
By Kangaroos coach Ricky Stuart

The prestige of Test football will only fully return when the preparation is the equal of or better than it is for State of Origin.

For years, players and fans have regarded Test football as the pinnacle-- but Origin as the better standard of football.

It is a paradox, but that's the way it is.

My job is to get the proper perspective back.

The most significant change to help me has been the form of New Zealand and Great Britain, who have built themselves into true Test nations and are now capable of dominating Test football if they keep progressing.

That brings it back to Australia, and how we handle our watch.

I was thinking about all this, about Test football and its place in our game at the rep season launch at Star City last Wednesday.

High up in the casino, overlooking the harbour, it was a classy and professional launch put on by the league, one deserving of representative football, and they must be congratulated for it.

It underlined how Test football should be the pinnacle of rugby league.

Since we admitted to ourselves that Origin is the better football, the bigger test, there has been a push to restore prestige to the Test arena, where it was hoped the intensity of the contest would follow.

It hasn't quite worked.

The reason it hasn't worked, I believe, is because they have it the wrong way around.

Test football will only regain its prestige once the intensity is back. It simply cannot work the other way.

Australia showed that in last year's Tri-Nations final, when New Zealand put the question to them and Australia came up short.

That loss has troubled me.

As somebody reported last week, when I had the Australian squad in camp earlier this year I showed footage of them playing last year's Origin series and then footage of their Test efforts.

They looked like completely different players.

I don't know what the reason was for the lacklustre effort in England and, frankly, I don't care. From here on, we are all about going forward. So we need to identify what makes Origin so intense and why Test football hasn't got it.

The first great quality Origin football has is that nobody can be sure who will win - which is totally different from being confident of winning.

While NSW and Queensland go into each Origin game confident of winning, every player also knows that there is a realistic chance of losing.

That brings an edge to the competition, a heightened effort, and that then makes the reward of winning so much sweeter.

Why? Because so much is on the line.

Origin preparation is second to none, players invest not just their body but their entire emotional stock into winning the game.

The fallout from that is that it makes it so devastating when they lose. They are spent, with no reserves to draw on.

That total emotional investment has been missing from Test football for a long time. Not anymore, though.

Australia can no longer afford to be anything below our best, which means it starts with our intensity of preparation.

The Australian players will walk into an Origin-type environment when they go into the Kangaroos camp on May 1.

As much as we can on a four-day preparation, we are going to prepare like we do in Origin, where emotions will build and the intensity increase and the release will come only when the players hit the field.

Most of all, the result will matter to the players involved. And when that matters, Test football matters.

http://townsvillebulletin.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,18751981%255E23214,00.html

Queenslander
10-04-06, 07:43 AM
I posted this yesterday ;)

http://www.titans.com.au//forum/showthread.php?t=3224