EJ might already be building for the next RWC but in the meantime he will chance his arm by selecting young players.
EJ might already be building for the next RWC but in the meantime he will chance his arm by selecting young players.
Yes, this World Cup is a write-off for Australia. It is just a rebuilding phase.
The reality is that it is not a coaching problem, their forward pack is just not test standard.
This could be a never-ending rebuilding phase.
Australia had almost nothing to hurt Fiji, except for individual opportunism and the odd lineout. Teams beat Fiji by putting them under pressure and being rewarded with penalties. Instead the Fijians feasted on turnover ball. The one player who could have helped with that was Hooper. But I doubt it would have been enough.
Fiji can probably beat any team in the tournament except for teams that can dominate them up front….Ireland, France and the Boks.
Remember 2007 when the Boks faced the same kind of rampant Fijian team in the quarters and found a way to lock things down and eliminate the Fijian backs. Australia simply didn’t have enough forward power on the field to pull that off.
https://drop.download/x8s9kc2m2end/Rugby.World.Cup.2023.09.17.Australia.Vs.Fiji.480p.x264-mSD.mkv.html
Feel so sorry for them
Hopper has retired 5 times and shows there's nobody to replace him. Flippen lock doing all their loose work. Edie Jones was back up assistant for us and that's all he's really worth.
They can still beat Wales??
Deus Ex Lemur
Senior player
2348 posts
Where do they go from here? Not even a shadow of the side they once were. I believe they still have the potential to play a lot better than this, but it does reflect the decline of the game's standing down under. Australia has been struggling for quite some time; there are many facets to it. Right now, they just aren't producing the quality that they once did, participation and viewership has dwindled, and union is just the game for the university snob/elite. How could this ever be remedied? The last statistic I saw placed union outside the top 10 for popularity in Australia. Of course they've suffered some injuries, and the odd omission of Hooper really has come back to bite them, but it looks like there are some dark, dark times ahead of the Wallabies.