Article about the Wallabies that hits very close to home.

here is a link to an article in the DT about the difference Cheika will make, and the type of team the Wallabie currently are.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/spo...-1227097683705

here a few highlights from the main bit that hit home for me. substitute the word wallabies for the word titans and you will hardly notice the change

The game was breeding a generation of soft athletes.
Under the guise of “professionalism”, where athletes “know their bodies”, the Wallabies have remained within their comfort zone for more than a decade.


They lost to Argentina and we all got disappointed. When did we learn to accept that it was acceptable?
What does the way the Wallabies play football say about them?
Not much.
They have no personality. They are uninspiring.
At some point the Wallabies went away from the values that underwrite successful franchises, kidding themselves they were being professional, and they are still trying to figure out where it went wrong.
But there is an upside.
Look closely and you will see that was the Waratahs’ problem for years. They looked good and had all the pedigree and as soon as it got tough they looked around to see who was going to get the job done.


Michael Cheika changed that.
He brought personal responsibility and accountability to the team.
He removed excuses.
There is a book recently out which gives a tremendous insight into the All Blacks.
Called Legacy, it opens with author John Kerr invited into the dressing room after the All Blacks beat Wales 42-7 in Dunedin in 2010, when Richie McCaw became the most successful captain in All Black history.
The dressing room after filled with a thousand well wishers as winning dressing rooms do.
Then manager Darren Shand quietly cleared the room until just the players and coaching staff remained for a debrief.
Once the debrief was over Kerr saw something “you might not expect”.
Two senior players picked up long-handled brooms and started sweeping the dressing room, pushing the mud and gauze to a pile in the corner.



It emerged that it was a closely guarded All Black tradition.
“It’s not expecting somebody else to do your job for you,” former All Black Andrew Mehrtens told Kerr. “It teaches you not to expect things to be handed to you.”
It’s a philosophy that underwrites everything the All Blacks are about.
Early in Cheika’s stint at the Waratahs the players walked off the field after training one day leaving, behind them, a field littered with empty drink bottles and used strapping.
It had always been somebody else’s job to pick them up.
Cheika looked at the mess and sent the players back.
It spoke of something bigger ...

I know what your saying, DB. But the Wallabies are a bit of a lost cause, and I expect them to be that way for some time to come. What's written in that article could be said about Ewen McKenzie when he first jagged the (Wallabies) role.

Back when McKenzie took over at the Queensland Reds, he pretty well cleared out the dead wood, and eventually turned the Reds into revitalised team that was playing entertaining Rugby until they eventually won the Super Rugby in 2011(?)

So yeah, I honestly thought if anyone could pull the Wallabies out of the hole that they've been in, it'd be McKenzie. But that proved not to be the case, and until they sort out the players attitudes like O'Conner, Beale 'n Co have. I guess not much is going to change. :(

But you could be right with what you say in relation to us (Titans). We just need someone to give our players a swift kick in the pants, and pull them into line. If they don't, unload them asap. Hopefully in our case Henry 'n Co will achieve that.