Queenslander
22-04-06, 01:50 PM
Trust in proven performers
by Wayne Bennett
Saturday April 22, 2006
Source: The Courier-Mail
IN eight days time, we will know who the Australian selectors have chosen to take on New Zealand in the May 5 Test in Brisbane and all the copious words written and opinions expressed about the Australian team will be filed and forgotten.
I haven't had much to say about it because I figured the subject was getting enough airplay without me adding my bit but I will say I have absolute confidence in the selection process.
Most of the people I worked with as Australian coach are still there and I worked with Des Morris at Origin level and just know that some of the things we've all seen and read about mass sackings and one-sided selections won't come to fruition.
People like Bob Fulton and Des Morris have been around coaching and football for far too long not to realise that wholesale changes never do you much good and not to know that players at this level have to be excused one or two bad performances or "off" nights, which is basically what last year's Tri-Nations final was.
Form is an issue but not the ONLY issue. There is a matter of stability and confidence in the ability of the players who have been there before and done the job before.
It's not loyalty, it's trust. The Australian selectors will know they can trust certain players to do what they have done in the past.
They will know you can't just discard a tried and tested player who has been at the top of his game for five or six years and replace him with some new star who has been at the top of his for five or six weeks. Experience is invaluable at Test level.
I remember the 2003 Origin series when Queensland copped a hiding in Sydney in the second game to lose the series and everyone wanted mass changes for the third game. We held our nerve and made two necessary changes and came out and produced one of the great Origin performances in the third game.
Without nominating the whole team I'd like to see Australia pick - because it's not my job or place to do so - I honestly think the selectors will stick with the nucleus of last year's team.
That means Darren Lockyer, Andrew Johns, Anthony Minichiello, Mark Gasnier, Matt Cooper, Matt King, Ben Kennedy, Danny Buderus, Petero Civoniceva, Luke O'Donnell, Mark O'Meley, Willie Mason and possibly Craig Fitzgibbon and Craig Gower should be there which leaves room for the likes of Johnathan Thurston and maybe one of the Matts - Sing or Bowen.
Thurston's claims are irresistible and Fulton and Co don't need to be told that.
..................
I AM dumbfounded by the criticism of the decision to play the third State of Origin match this year in Melbourne and staggered that there are people in rugby league who want to abandon the Victorian capital altogether.
We live in a global world which is expanding, not contracting, and any business or sport which doesn't allow itself to grow will wither and die. I don't want to see rugby league being one of those.
Melbourne is Australia's second biggest city so it is a vital market for our game and I think the adminstrators who have shown the courage to take what could be the deciding Origin game there this year should be applauded.
With the Victorian Government's enthusiastic support, the ARL and NRL have started a concerted three-year program to lift league's profile in AFL-mad Melbourne and using our showcase Origin games in that program makes perfect sense.
The AFL didn't abandon Sydney in the years when the Swans were battling and now they have a code which can be considered truly national with the premiership having been one by a team from every mainland state capital.
Rugby league cannot afford to ignore that growth, or the threat. If we want to sit there protecting our own little patch we're going to find we don't have a patch any more because while we've been looking inwards someone else has been coming at us from the outside.
While the other codes and sports have been concentrating on "growing" their markets, rugby league - or at least some of the people who run the clubs in it - seem to want to strangle it.
Look at the argument over the 2008 World Cup. It's a great concept but all we seem to hear is arguments from NRL clubs that it can't be played at the start of that year because it will disrupt the club competition.
Come on ... if we can't celebrate 100 years of rugby league in this country with a world cup what hope are we?
We've got a wonderful product and if baffles me why we don't have the confidence in it to sell it in a wider market.
Wayne Bennett's column appears every Saturday in The Courier-Mail
by Wayne Bennett
Saturday April 22, 2006
Source: The Courier-Mail
IN eight days time, we will know who the Australian selectors have chosen to take on New Zealand in the May 5 Test in Brisbane and all the copious words written and opinions expressed about the Australian team will be filed and forgotten.
I haven't had much to say about it because I figured the subject was getting enough airplay without me adding my bit but I will say I have absolute confidence in the selection process.
Most of the people I worked with as Australian coach are still there and I worked with Des Morris at Origin level and just know that some of the things we've all seen and read about mass sackings and one-sided selections won't come to fruition.
People like Bob Fulton and Des Morris have been around coaching and football for far too long not to realise that wholesale changes never do you much good and not to know that players at this level have to be excused one or two bad performances or "off" nights, which is basically what last year's Tri-Nations final was.
Form is an issue but not the ONLY issue. There is a matter of stability and confidence in the ability of the players who have been there before and done the job before.
It's not loyalty, it's trust. The Australian selectors will know they can trust certain players to do what they have done in the past.
They will know you can't just discard a tried and tested player who has been at the top of his game for five or six years and replace him with some new star who has been at the top of his for five or six weeks. Experience is invaluable at Test level.
I remember the 2003 Origin series when Queensland copped a hiding in Sydney in the second game to lose the series and everyone wanted mass changes for the third game. We held our nerve and made two necessary changes and came out and produced one of the great Origin performances in the third game.
Without nominating the whole team I'd like to see Australia pick - because it's not my job or place to do so - I honestly think the selectors will stick with the nucleus of last year's team.
That means Darren Lockyer, Andrew Johns, Anthony Minichiello, Mark Gasnier, Matt Cooper, Matt King, Ben Kennedy, Danny Buderus, Petero Civoniceva, Luke O'Donnell, Mark O'Meley, Willie Mason and possibly Craig Fitzgibbon and Craig Gower should be there which leaves room for the likes of Johnathan Thurston and maybe one of the Matts - Sing or Bowen.
Thurston's claims are irresistible and Fulton and Co don't need to be told that.
..................
I AM dumbfounded by the criticism of the decision to play the third State of Origin match this year in Melbourne and staggered that there are people in rugby league who want to abandon the Victorian capital altogether.
We live in a global world which is expanding, not contracting, and any business or sport which doesn't allow itself to grow will wither and die. I don't want to see rugby league being one of those.
Melbourne is Australia's second biggest city so it is a vital market for our game and I think the adminstrators who have shown the courage to take what could be the deciding Origin game there this year should be applauded.
With the Victorian Government's enthusiastic support, the ARL and NRL have started a concerted three-year program to lift league's profile in AFL-mad Melbourne and using our showcase Origin games in that program makes perfect sense.
The AFL didn't abandon Sydney in the years when the Swans were battling and now they have a code which can be considered truly national with the premiership having been one by a team from every mainland state capital.
Rugby league cannot afford to ignore that growth, or the threat. If we want to sit there protecting our own little patch we're going to find we don't have a patch any more because while we've been looking inwards someone else has been coming at us from the outside.
While the other codes and sports have been concentrating on "growing" their markets, rugby league - or at least some of the people who run the clubs in it - seem to want to strangle it.
Look at the argument over the 2008 World Cup. It's a great concept but all we seem to hear is arguments from NRL clubs that it can't be played at the start of that year because it will disrupt the club competition.
Come on ... if we can't celebrate 100 years of rugby league in this country with a world cup what hope are we?
We've got a wonderful product and if baffles me why we don't have the confidence in it to sell it in a wider market.
Wayne Bennett's column appears every Saturday in The Courier-Mail