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It's time for the Waratahs to move on
By Ben Smith
Sometimes wins gloss over obvious failings, and this applies to the Waratahs who have won five from seven. They are about to make a mistake handing the halfback jersey back to Nick Phipps, a longtime mainstay of the Waratahs who returned to the bench last weekend.
It’s time for the Waratahs to hand over the halves to the next generation and move on from Phipps and flyhalf Bernard Foley.
Jake Gordon has outplayed Phipps in every facet of the game while Phipps has been dealing with injury, while Foley is a proven liability both at the Wallabies and Waratahs.
The notion that Foley is a ‘safe’ player is conventional wisdom that defies reality. He has the most turnovers of any number 10 in Super Rugby. He is Damian McKenzie without the explosive attacking upside.
It may be surprising to learn that Foley had only three less handling errors than Quade Cooper last year. He was the third worst turnover machine, one below Quade. If Cooper ‘struggled’ last year as Brad Thorn asserts, then what to make of Foley who was just as unreliable?
At 28-years-old, the inevitable decline in physical traits will set in. He doesn’t have stability in the rest of his game to warrant selection on reputation. Older 10’s that become less effective in the running game are able to transform into reliable distributors with excellent game management. Foley still makes basic unforced errors you would expect from a club player or schoolboy.
The Waratahs will find out the fate of their season with a four-game stretch during May in which they play every New Zealand team except the Hurricanes. If they come out of that with their season in tatters, it is the perfect time to start a new era. Playing to win the Australian conference is like playing for a participation trophy. If they cannot match the firepower of the New Zealand sides it's time to make changes and figure out how to.
Ex-Queensland Reds squad member and Australian under-20’s flyhalf Mack Mason is waiting in the wings, who they liked enough to sign two seasons ago away from the Reds. He is 22-years-old and is not going to sit around forever.
Mason's passing game is a real asset. With him, they could diversify away from a system where Beale shoulders the first receiver load for Foley. A secondary playmaker will give the Waratahs attack two legitimate options to play around. Beale's running game could really open up with a flyhalf that could create space for him, which doesn't get much time to flourish currently.
Jake Gordon has already proven he is one of the top two halfbacks in the country, if not for Will Genia he would be number one. At 24-years-old he is a future Wallaby with a running game unrivaled by Phipps. Like every great halfback, his support lines are great and his pass looks better than the incumbent.
Heading back to a Foley-Phipps combination is not going to take the Waratahs where they want to go.
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Latest Comments
Yeah I actually think it was Havili that took it off him. Not bad himself, but on the advice of Razor, who didn't even pursue it and use Havili on a split bench as 10 cover?
One huge cluster#$@% but I think you could be right, I liked O'Connor when he won at the Reds and I've just got a funny feeling he's going to dominate Super Rugby, kinda like how Cooper came back to the Wallabies as an experienced head and spat out South Africa. I think James could do the same with the Blues and other Aus sides. I'd really love Rivez to get a lot of minutes though.
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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