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Phil Clarke, the Dodger and the Problem!


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“Roger Millward epitomised the sort of play that I think is in danger of disappearing from the game. The best tries are always the ones that you don't expect to see, and he scored many of those. I hope his legacy can be an inspiration to the next generation of midfield maestros.”

 

When I saw Phil Clarke’s article on the Sky Sport’s website I found myself nodding in agreement at first and then I had an ambivalent moment. I saw the two necessary parts of the story. On the one hand we have to match the Aussies in certain well coached areas of the game to beat them. And the way the Aussies have taught us all to play is neither the be all or end all of what the game is about, and in those moments where I remember us doing really well, we often did things that the Roos didn’t expect! And there it is; how to get both these things on the field at one time? In other words, how to teach what the “Dodger” brought to the game? And to get your team to do them both in sufficient quantities and at the right times in the match?

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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I always think this is the balance to be struck and the difference between a good and a great side.  Somehow - and I don't know how you coach this - the team needs to know when to go off script.  And I don't this means just putting in a pointless chip over, you need to know when it's on.  I played for a lot of teams (league and union) when I was younger.  Not to a great level, but I did play one or two teams that, man for man, were no better than the others I played on, but somehow had a great attacking instinct and hardly ever lost as a result.  I don't really know why those teams were so good, but the coaches on both focussed a lot on spatial awareness type exercises in training and I think it really opened the players' eyes as to what was in front of them rather than executing a planned move.

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That's an excellent point

Case being last seasons thriller between giants and Leeds at the end of season

Across the 17 there was little to choose between the teams, the thing that split the game, and has for some time as far as the giants are concerned is just that - knowing when "it's on"

Knowing when that out of nothing play is there and when it's not. More importantly being switched on to follow it up - support play etc.

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I believe that conversations like this are rooted in a fallacy.  That being that the well coached teams in Australia are contradictory to off the cuff attacking rugby.  In fact quite the opposite is true, the NRL has a significant number of outstanding and innovative attacking players (think Johnson or Milford).

 

The reason why they are so good is because of the well coached structures in Australia not despite of it.  If it were easy to unlock a defence then anybody can do it.  If the defence is first class then it takes a bit of genius.

 

We need the game in England to be more like the NRL in that respect not less like it.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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How do these rose-coloured-glasses wearing throwbacks like Schofields explain that, back in the good old days, when GB/England played "proper British rugby," between 1980 - 2000, Australia won 20/25 games.

 

Look at some of the scores during Australia's robotic, defence-oriented period (mainly 2006 onwards)

 

2008 - OZ 52-4

2009 - OZ 26-16 and OZ 46-16

2010 - OZ 34-14, etc, etc

 

Never let the facts get in the way of a tedious whine about the good old days.

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I believe that conversations like this are rooted in a fallacy.  That being that the well coached teams in Australia are contradictory to off the cuff attacking rugby.  In fact quite the opposite is true, the NRL has a significant number of outstanding and innovative attacking players (think Johnson or Milford).

 

The reason why they are so good is because of the well coached structures in Australia not despite of it.  If it were easy to unlock a defence then anybody can do it.  If the defence is first class then it takes a bit of genius.

 

We need the game in England to be more like the NRL in that respect not less like it.

 

I must save I've never been of the view that Aussie coaching contradicts off the cuff rugby (I didn't have the NRL in mind particularly with my reply). 

 

If we are comparing the NRL and Super League, I think what British teams do, sadly, is an imitation of the structured play they see in Australia at the expense of some creativity.  You need both.

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How do these rose-coloured-glasses wearing throwbacks like Schofields explain that, back in the good old days, when GB/England played "proper British rugby," between 1980 - 2000, Australia won 20/25 games.

 

Look at some of the scores during Australia's robotic, defence-oriented period (mainly 2006 onwards)

 

2008 - OZ 52-4

2009 - OZ 26-16 and OZ 46-16

2010 - OZ 34-14, etc, etc

 

Never let the facts get in the way of a tedious whine about the good old days.

I think Rogers final international test was against the Aussies in 1978ish. 2-1 to Oz. There were some 'good old days' before that......but not many since.

A very good player Roger Millward.

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I must save I've never been of the view that Aussie coaching contradicts off the cuff rugby (I didn't have the NRL in mind particularly with my reply). 

 

If we are comparing the NRL and Super League, I think what British teams do, sadly, is an imitation of the structured play they see in Australia at the expense of some creativity.  You need both.

 

In the NRL the structured play is used to grind the other team down thus creating opportunities for off-the-cuff play. In SL the off-the-cuff play often seems to occur because a team runs out of ideas.

 

The only SL team I've seen that came close to achieving the "Aussie structured style" was Maguire's Wigan and I don't recall the Pies fans complaining.

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I certainly think there is a place for the unexpected.  I recall an incident at the old Craven Park ground in 1987.  Cup tie, 2nd div Fev v 1st div HKR.

Scrum in the Fev 25, ball goes to Steadman, and he hoofs it as far as he can up the field.  What a stupid thing to do! But wait, here comes the fastest man in the Fev team Chris Bibb, and no one in the HKR team are aware of what's about to happen.  By the time they woke up Chris Bibb had scored.  Fev did that several times that season, and I noticed Widnes copying it too.  But you never see it now.  You can't keep doing it, but now and again it'll pay off.  As it did that day at Craven Park.

“Few thought him even a starter.There were many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM. An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.”

Clement Attlee.

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I struggle to accept the distinction between off-the-cuff and structured/pre-planned really. The structure gives you the different options in attack (for example the inside ball, the lead runner, out the back, a dummy, a kick for the winger) and what might be seen as 'off-the-cuff' is just the vision to see the right option and execute it well. 

 

Two good examples of what I mean here: Trent Robinson after the WCS game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tByy3MGdXPU (8 minutes in)

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/rugby-league/10243203/carney-analyses-dragons-win Todd Carney after the Saints game (3 mins 45 in)

 

In the Carney video, he talks about how because the winger was a bit deep, he hits the long pass to the winger. He says if the winger had come up a bit too much, he would have kicked to the corner. If the defence opposite him had got their spacing wrong, he may have ran himself. 

In the Robinson video, they spot a few errors in the Saints defence and take advantage by hitting the right option (Nikorima out the pack), him picking the right option of dummying initially and so on.

 

If you just watched both these tries I don't think most would see it as 'structured' play. They had their structure in both, the only thing that the players couldn't have told you before the ball was played was which options were going to be taken, because that's determined by cues from the defence (ie winger shooting in, winger hanging back, a defender getting drawn to the lead man). I'd say this is the case for most tries nowadays, with the exceptions of stuff like Wide to West or breaks from a kick return for example. 

 

If this is true, the question isn't how can we be more "off-the-cuff" - a question which is very difficult to answer because this is seen as something you either have or you don't - it's how do we make better decisions and execute them better? The answer lies in creating a competition where bad decisions aren't rewarded (by soft tries) and good decisions are necessary to create points. Carney never has to worry (and therefore never has to improve) about looking for the long pass or the kick behind the winger etc if his hooker has dived over from dummy half the play before.

I totally agree that "better decision making" is the way to describe the issue rather than "off the cuff", although there is a bit of a risk of it becoming about semantics.

My perception, and I think it is shared, is that some poor decision making stems from trying to play in too structured a way. To give a simple example, ignoring a clear overlap because the player with the ball was expecting just to take a drive. He can't be criticised, he made the metres and executed the play as expected, but lost the chance to make a bigger dent or create a try by shifting it on.

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I certainly think there is a place for the unexpected.  I recall an incident at the old Craven Park ground in 1987.  Cup tie, 2nd div Fev v 1st div HKR.

Scrum in the Fev 25, ball goes to Steadman, and he hoofs it as far as he can up the field.  What a stupid thing to do! But wait, here comes the fastest man in the Fev team Chris Bibb, and no one in the HKR team are aware of what's about to happen.  By the time they woke up Chris Bibb had scored.  Fev did that several times that season, and I noticed Widnes copying it too.  But you never see it now.  You can't keep doing it, but now and again it'll pay off.  As it did that day at Craven Park.

 

I've often wanted to see my team try something like this and despair when a forward is brought out of the pack to drive it in on the first tackle in our own 20.

 

Does it not happen because it's such a high risk play that it almost never comes off? 

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How do these rose-coloured-glasses wearing throwbacks like Schofields ...

 

...Never let the facts get in the way of a tedious whine about the good old days.

The sport now is clearly very different from the 60s and 70s. There are some who prefer the previous version and some who prefer the modern game. Some of those with a perspective, interest and involvement on both eras are probably worth listening to.

Kids in the days of Millward played hundreds of hours of touch and pass every year. By the time the most able ones were ready for more serious competition, they had thousand of hours of reading the evolving situations, were used to reacting in fractions of a second to the need to fill a gap, exploit or negate a weakness. It was muscle memory to us. The forensic analyses by TV experts were what we did, in an instant, for fun. Most of us didn't progress: the few who did carried this ability with them. The modern game, in contrast, relies heavily on relentless high speed battering of the defensive line to create weaknesses, only then to be exploited. The ability to create a space by footwork or ball handling has a much reduced part in the modern game.

I think we know that the older version is not coming back: please allow us to lament its passing.

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The sport now is clearly very different from the 60s and 70s. There are some who prefer the previous version and some who prefer the modern game. Some of those with a perspective, interest and involvement on both eras are probably worth listening to.

Kids in the days of Millward played hundreds of hours of touch and pass every year. By the time the most able ones were ready for more serious competition, they had thousand of hours of reading the evolving situations, were used to reacting in fractions of a second to the need to fill a gap, exploit or negate a weakness. It was muscle memory to us. The forensic analyses by TV experts were what we did, in an instant, for fun. Most of us didn't progress: the few who did carried this ability with them. The modern game, in contrast, relies heavily on relentless high speed battering of the defensive line to create weaknesses, only then to be exploited. The ability to create a space by footwork or ball handling has a much reduced part in the modern game.

I think we know that the older version is not coming back: please allow us to lament its passing.

 

I think that any passing of a great will focus a few memories and comparisons and there's nothing wrong with either. And they will come into arguments as people use all their experiences to come up with a response to a thread. From what I've noticed and read here some people think it is there behind the attrition others think it is no where near the quantity it needs to be. No one seems to agree wholeheartedly with the argument it was being coached out of the game.  But what in modern coaching or playing terms is making Phil Clarke think it is? Or is it simply SL is not producing enough game controllers and changers?

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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I played my first game of RL in 1967 and I definitely disagree with the "good-ole-days" brigade.

Ducky people see things based on their experiences and bring their memories into play when making sense of something. Schoey is a dinosaur and was largely over rated even then! But bringing your baggage to an argument won't make you a Schoey that takes a special sort of talent and blinkered view of the universe which starts at Batley and ends at Hunslet. Even the most reactionary, reductionist and "Can't we just play the game in my back yard?" posters have not earned the title Schoey except in jest!

 

Though along with the titles and trophies presented at the end of the year I do think we should have the Schoies, like the Oscars for the most backward, limiting and negative pundit of the year. To qualify for a Schoey you'd have to be perfect in all three categories for most of the RL season at the very least, so there won't be a shortage of candidates.

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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I played my first game of RL in 1967 and I definitely disagree with the "good-ole-days" brigade.

You're fortunate and I envy you. Along with tens of thousands of others, you enjoy the modern high speed, high impact game, with large, strong and fit athletes, with gaps hard to find, and breaks hard earned. Plenty of folk find it thrilling and compelling. I miss a different game with, I believe, a greater display of footwork and ball handling craft, and a very different ethos. My loss, and I fully understand I'm in a small minority. Of course there were faults in the game two, three, four decades ago, but a lot of people still enjoyed it, and miss it.

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You're fortunate and I envy you. Along with tens of thousands of others, you enjoy the modern high speed, high impact game, with large, strong and fit athletes, with gaps hard to find, and breaks hard earned. Plenty of folk find it thrilling and compelling. I miss a different game with, I believe, a greater display of footwork and ball handling craft, and a very different ethos. My loss, and I fully understand I'm in a small minority. Of course there were faults in the game two, three, four decades ago, but a lot of people still enjoyed it, and miss it.

 

And you're absolutely right to mourn the passing of something that contained its own beauty it's why Harry Edgar's stuff is such an interesting reminder of what's been lost! Mind you, I think a few on here are still holding wakes for mauls and kicking straight into touch! ;)

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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