Greg Growden – clueless, as ever
Posted by Christopher Sheil on Friday, August 3, 2007
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As regular Troppo rugby tragics know, the journalist that I, and tens of thousands of other Sydney fans, hate with an unquenchable passion is the SMH‘s hilariously named “chief rugby reporter”, Greg Growden – the most ignorant rugby writer to have lifted a pen in the history of the game. Bored with rugby, bored with the Wallabies, bored with the World Cup, these days Greg takes his cheque for stalking the coaching and admin staff. For late comers, our Greg’s obsessiveness over all things trivial off-field is in perfectly inverse proportion to his abject lack of interest in the substance of the game itself.
To come to my point, so bored is Greg Growden with Australian rugby, this week he’s been breathlessly promoting Robbie Deans as the next Wallaby coach. That’s right. While the Wallabies prepare for the biggest games of their lives in the globe’s second biggest football tournament, our Greg thinks that this is all so shit-boring that he wants to spark debate about the next World Cup. The nub is that Shrinkden Growden says Deans’ appointment is virtually a “done deal”.
Let’s get some perspective. The idea of importing a Wallaby coach from New Zealand implicitly says that there is no such thing as an Australian way of playing rugby or, if there is, that it should be junked. Greggy doesn’t realise that this is what he’s saying, of course. Greggy Poo doesn’t realise very much about anything at all. As every real rugby fan knows, it remains that countries have their own traditions in playing the game. The Pommies play 10-man rugby, the French play with flair, the Boks play dirty, the All Blacks specialise in forward power and the Wallabies play … yes, the running game, the great game, the Australian game.
The question about whether Deans should be invited to coach the Wallabies is really a question about whether Australian rugby should converge with All Black rugby. I think this would be sad beyond tears, for, like most Oz fans, I love the running game. OK, I agree that there may be a decent argument to be had about all this. That’s not my point. The idiocy in this, the capital crime here, is that the SMH‘s so-called “chief rugby reporter” is garrulously pontificating on a subject about which he doesn’t have a friggin’ clue. Let’s hope John O’Neill does.
Update: The only silver lining in the SMH‘s appalling rugby coverage is that it makes work for the Australian, where the excellent Bret Harris cleans up Growden’s ugly mess on Deans and other sundry figments of the Herald nutjob’s imagination today. At ease tragics. All that has happened is that the ban on a non-Australian coaching the Wallabies was removed during the Flowers era, making it theoretically possible that Deans could get the job. As it is also clear that Deans wants to coach the All Blacks, and as this is likely to happen after the Blacks repeat their fatal propensity to choke come World Cup time, the running game looks safe. If the loathsome Greg Growden reports on the World Cup, I’m switching to buying the Australian, exclusively, for the first time in my life.
Update: Nick Farr-Right Jones calls it like it is: ‘”Sitting in the dressing shed with five minutes to go before a test with a Kiwi coach doing the revving up … I don’t think so’. Farr-Jones said the risk of tinkering with the very fabric of Wallabies’ culture was too great to pursue Deans, despite the success enjoyed by the Canterbury Crusaders mentor.” See also, analysis by Jim Parker in comments. Meanwhile, back in the real world, England has served notice, opening its season with a record breaking win against an understrength Wales. No 8, Nick Easter, led the way. Danger Man, Jonny Wilkinson, kicked 7 conversions and a penalty.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 AM and filed under Journalism, Media, Print media, Sport - rugby.
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I think you’re also living in the past. The Wallabies haven’t played running rugby for years. The All Blacks use their excellent backline when there is an opportunity. I think Deans is clearly better than any of the Australian coaching candidates, all of which have their own distinctive style.
Certainly Connolly has never been known as a proponent of running rugby. He always emphasised strong forward play and that is how his Qld teams consistently beat the NSW team. While the waratahs were trying to be creative, the reds ground away and we wilted under the pressure.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 11:01 am | PermalinkKinda bizarre that there has been absolutely zero coverage of the Australian Rugby Championship, which is kicking off in about two weeks, with a swag of new rules.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 11:57 am | Permalink“The Wallabies havent played running rugby for years.”
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 12:56 pm | PermalinkTragically true, Pat. The correct blend of pyhsical chess and fleet-footed flair is difficult to achieve against modern defensive patterns.
On the upside, Chritopher, John O’Neill is unlikely to make enquiries as to Alan Jones’s availability for the coaching position. Great lover of the 10-man game was Our Gloria.
I reckon we should get Patrick to pack down with Crowden and ram his head into a scrum machine. About an hour and a half should do it.
He might then feel more like writing up some rugby.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 1:04 pm | PermalinkI assume you aren’t talking about this Patrick! (I am not Pat, if that helps).
I agree that Crowden is full of it. When he does write about rugby it tends to be boring boilerplate crap.
I disagree about the illegitimacy of a NZ coach – I think Mitchell, for example, would be great. But that is partly because he has spent some time here now.
I also hope we get more coverage of the Rugby Shield – I hope it works!
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 3:49 pm | Permalinkplay the running game.
The last time the Wallabies did that was when Ella, Hawker ,O’Connor and co were playing.
They have been as boring as batpaint ever since. Now they rarely win people start to realize this.
the current cycle the Walllabies have few decent players hence their record.
you wil have to wait for the decent players to emerge.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 3:59 pm | PermalinkRobinson, T Po-Nau, Holmes, Vickerman, A A-H, McMeniman, Elsom, Smith, Henjak, Beale, Gits, A A-C, Ioane, Shepherd, Turner.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 4:25 pm | PermalinkThe last time the Wallabies did that was when Ella, Hawker ,OConnor and co were playing
Haven’t you heard of Australia’s greatest ever inside-centre, Tim Horan? Not to mention Jason Little, Joe Roff, Matty Burke, Ben Tune and, well, I could go on, but I trust you get the point. Just try telling Campo that we should forget about … the running game, the Australian game.
They have been as boring as batpaint ever since. Now they rarely win people start to realize this.
Um, try two World Cup victories, just for starters, numnut.
the current cycle the Walllabies have few decent players hence their record. you wil have to wait for the decent players to emerge.
As Patrick begins to note, Australia is currently plush with both great experienced players and a bevy of exciting up and comers. Homer, you must be related to Greg zzzzzz Growden. All we need is a coach and admin with the spirit, and, praise the lord, some reporting for a change. True, Knucks is a 10-man guy at heart, but he has some assistants in the great tradition of …
… yes … the running game, the Australian game, save intermission from Crazy Eddie, who has, God bless, gone to do for the Springboks what he did for the Wallabies and Queensland.
To be clear, I’m not necessarily against an NZ coach per se. My point is that there must be a debate on what this implies about the traditions and future direction of Australian rugby. If our destiny is to be a carbon copy of the All Blacks, heaven forbid, let it be said, not media implied.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 4:45 pm | PermalinkGawd you blokes have got to be joking,rugby union one of the worlds great sleep inducers.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 7:29 pm | PermalinkAs for the ARC who cares,from what I can gather not many,how long will it last about one year till it loses another 6 mil,then again you could give Lote another 6 mil to stay awake.
As for mentioning the French,yeah right the French Rugby union are a pack of thieves and some of them should have been tried as war criminals after the war,for cooperating with the Nazis so I think I would leave the french well alone.
Rugby Union the only game to pay the ABC to broadcast it,think they might be trying to tell you something
Wow, I thought such incoherence like that was confined to the extreme left and AFL supporters :)
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 8:37 pm | PermalinkThere is no doubt Australian Rugby is not handling media well – for rugby. Despite the constant media training, and despite the congenial, coherent nature of the players and coaches in media tasks, the way “media” has infiltrated the rugby thinking is not good. It’s no surprise, really, that someone like Crowden’s writing gets a run in that environment: one a crook reflection of the other.
Unlike over the creek, where the nation stops – literally – for the Test matches, and where national outburst or mourning follow losses, here, the Australian public except for John Ryan is much more easy going about our national teams, though we support them dearly. On the whole our players get it (well, everyone but Sailor), but I don’t know the administration does. At NSW Waratah level over most of the last decade, as far as known, ‘the media’ had taken on a kind of worship status within the offices. ‘The media’ loomed around every corner of conversation, pressing to enter, and it puffed up chests during the day and into the night regardless of the balance or score sheet. Perhaps it’s the same at Wallaby admin level as well.
Thirty years ago Rugby Union was spoken of as “a game played by professionals and run by amateurs” and Rugby League was “a game played by amateurs and run by pro’s”. If that were so, Rugby has long had admin problems and more importantly was highly susceptible to media capture and toadying.
Admin seems to regard media as money and status. The real money, and real status, is on the field: a result of what should be brilliant structure to house and grow the most accommodating sport for boys (and now women?). It’s the only team game where a less physically co-ordinated thickset slow runner has a place of equal importance amongst small, flighty builds, and all natures find positions awaiting them. It’s different now at Wallaby level, but grass roots rugby still has open arms for all. It’s a crying shame that rugby is not administered to its capacity. If it were, ‘the media’ would be playing a very different role to the one it currently does, off the field. The money and status would come from solid effective structure, and onfield results, and this would be reflected in its coverage.
I’m wondering at a sport to contrast this with, and motor sport comes to mind. Not into it, but the sport has infiltrated media to the extent of incredible coverage and ‘player’ support, player interest, in what appears a truly special symbiotic relationship. I know it’s different but the fact remains that motor sport could have buggered it up, and didn’t. Clearly, that sport’s focus of onfield quality (not sure of structure) has provided its media returns.
That’s very different from our guys regarding media as an off-field end goal of itself – or, lacking real relationship, something to be tamed or even berated, ffs! “Give us more support” they cry, as Sailor flashes a diamond earring, and [official, name deleted] swans around with a headset on an hour after the friggin match, living off that feeling, “too much on the job” to take it off, and really just fishing for a camera.
It’s troublesome to consider that media culture is very much embedded in representative rugby today. And I think it requires a proper, complete structural overhaul to cut to root causes to fix.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 9:39 pm | PermalinkFurther to the above, as change to structure, how would this go?
Super 12 or 10 or whatever it was when started heralded a new era in rugby, one which was to bring Test match intensity, replete with team lashings of Test match players, weekly, into your living room. Watch them go! Such temptation! Obviously too good to refuse.
But it single-handedly (emphasised) altered Australian rugby and its structure.
Why not remove all Australian teams from today’s Super series, except for one: a team comprised of up-and-coming players – those on the edge of State or National selection. Just one Australian team.
Why? Those players will be position-specific. What exists now is too many players vying for a run, let alone a particular spot, where players are chosen for that team’s (franchise, sorry, cs) success regardless of anything else. Previous comments here have mentioned the otherwise disruptive nature of S14 for Aussies. But a singular national team would not only focus crowd and media attention, it would enhance the onfield success and flow-on effects of that. Australians are not State focused in S14, other than to play around with it, have fun, jest and wish for something better. We, really, just want all Australians to succeed. So, let’s make it one national team to enter S14, built of very ready up and comers.
Then, let’s go back to the State vs State system. This is where our hot shots are vying for international colours. State of Origin as happens with League, if you like, in Australian Rugby would pull much more than a dispersed, separate, shithouse-results, S14 system. Perhaps we could allow for the overswing of players so they can represent other states, somehow. Maybe, in the interim, credentials are not ‘origin’ but of temporary visa or some such.
A State vs State system forces the power back into the roots: in a few years the effects would show, and continue to show. Let’s bring back the power of representing your State. And, from that, gaining the green and gold guernsey.
How to fill that out? Not sure, but that structure resounds more soundly at a shot, and further then an Australian Rugby Championship must happen, in some way in that better context, as something to shoot for for a kid to lay out the golden path that has provenly provided our great internationals. Money doesn’t buy them: that golden pathway makes them.
Then, somehow, those S14 up and comers are eligible in the State mix for national selection for the big ones. We have, that way, breeding grounds aplently.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 10:58 pm | PermalinkI’m inclined to agree with Pat at #1.
On a completely different topic Chris, I wonder where Nostradamus is? (Let alone who he was.) It is about time he returned to the blogosphere to predict a Howard win.
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 8:35 am | PermalinkStory now updated. No worries for the running game, yet anyway.
Nostra? If I was Nostra I’d be predicting a Costello win. Yep, there’s still time, and it would tighten the race, pulling back economic liberals who have had a gutful of Jack’s lies.
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 11:59 am | PermalinkDear Patrick pray tell what did I say that is wrong,you may not like the way it was said but then I left school at 14 to work,sorry about that,I am also what you would describe as a left winger sorry about that to.
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 12:54 pm | PermalinkAm I right in saying the the FRU did a deal with the Vichy regime and banned Rugby League during the war,and took over all there assets which as far as I know they never paid for is,nt that called theft,the FRU said it was an English game,which as we all know RU is not, we are not sure what RU is yet as they have not made up there own minds about it.
Is it true that the RU will lose 6 mil this year,wonder how much the Parramatter player is getting to switch codes if Lote cost you 6 mil,how much is he getting
Is it also true that the RU is paying $250 000 to get the ARC on FTA,dont know if the QRL is paying the ABC to show the Queensland Cup but I doubt it people watch that,I have watched RU did so when I was in Sydney in the 70s for a year or so followed Eastwood.
Has the RU signed one of those agreements like the AFL has with NEWS Ltd for coverage,I also get the OZ and think that Crowden might be telling the truth something which the bloke who writes for the OZ,if he of the same ilk as a Mr P Smith,a booster for the code, not a dispassionate observer,or maybe he just calls it as he sees it
an inside centre sets up his outside men.
Tim did not do that, Jason really didn’t run all that much.
Both defended very well under boring coaches.
Even Bobby Dwyer was boring the second time round.
We haven’t played running rugby since the early eighties.
For those who do not understnd that is where the threequarter pass it with gay abandon and skillful players score tries.
CS you are living in another land
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 1:13 pm | PermalinkI also get the OZ and think that Crowden might be telling the truth something which the bloke who writes for the OZ,if he of the same ilk as a Mr P Smith,a booster for the code, not a dispassionate observer,or maybe he just calls it as he sees it
Crap. And it’s Growden, not Crowden. You’re obviously a close reader.
Growden has a fixation with off-field trivia, which he, no doubt, calls how he wants to see it in his own puny mind. The trouble is this is not what rugby fans want to read about, which is the actual game, with players, with a ball, with scrums and goalposts and try lines.
If you want to read about what an idiot thinks, who is fixated on playing political leaking games with the admin and coaching staff, fine. I think there could be a place for that sort of slant; perhaps an undergraduate political sociological journal in Wagga Wagga. Meanwhile, SMH readers are denied news on the game itself, which the Oz gang does very well indeed these days.
Dispassion disqualifies you from the job. Anyone who writes about rugby without a genuine feel for and love of the game may just as well not bother writing, if he is aiming to write for the game’s fans; full stop. If he is not writing for the fans, who is he serving? Rugby league fans? His stupid self? Perhaps he is on the take from somewhere? Who knows. You have unfortunately mistaken “dispassionate observer” for the proper quality, which is correctly praised as “critical observer”, and which the Oz is with rugby, and of a high quality at that.
And the dickhead was wrong. Clearly, the coaching job is wide open, and Deans is unlikely to even be a candidate. Growden could not have been more inaccurate, and he was on the wrong subject anyway, the significance of which eluded him entirely in any event. He can’t even call his own lousy stringy crap straight. If he “just calls it as he sees it”, we have a blind man.
With a World Cup looming, either Greg Growden goes from the Herald, or I happily will.
Homer, I am living in another land, from you at least, and thank goodness for small mercies.
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 1:58 pm | PermalinkAs a New Zealander, I wouldn’t worry about Robbie Deans destroying Australia’s great tradition of running rugby. This is a man who has taken the Crusaders to SIX Super 12/14 titles by employing probably the most scintillating counter-attacking game in the world. Deans is a former All Black utility back and one of the best attacking coaches in the world. That’s why John O’Neill wants to get his hands on him.
Actually, I suspect this whole business about Deans being lined up is part of a negotiation strategy on both sides of the Tasman. Deans wants the All Blacks job, once the Graham Henry-Steven Hansen-Wayne Smith coaching triumvarite split after the World Cup. Henry has given notice of his intention to move on whatever happens, choke or no choke.
The most obvious successors would be a Robbie Deans-Warren Gatland combination. Gatland is another recently returned Kiwi, who spent a few years coaching Ireland quite successfully. He now coaches the NPC-winning Waikato provincial side, and is assistant coach of the Super 14 franchise, the Chiefs, which Waikato feeds into. Gatland is an old fashioned forwards coach – Deans a backs specialist, so it would be a great combination.
Anyway, it’s in Deans’ interests to keep the ARU story stringing along. And it’s John O’Neill’s interest to do likewise as the notion that he has such options at his fingertips givens him leverage with the local contenders like Ewen Mackenzie and Rod Kafer.
Personally, I think Deans would be making a catastrophic mistake to enter the political bearpit of Australian rugby. There is absolutely no way in the world he would have the control he enjoys at The Crusaders, where the cultural is a much more collegiate one than the bitchy, backbiting one of Australian rugby.
As for Growden, he is a beat-up merchant par excellence. But in his defence, he tends to end up obsessing about back-room politics so much, because no-one is really that interested in what is going on in the field.
As a Kiwi expat, I continually get the sense that that is the problem with Australian rugby. To a large extent the sport serves as a backdrop for weekend power politics by former private school lawyers and dealmakers. In New Zealand, by contrast, what happens on the playing field itself has primacy. The sport is the end game, not the machinations surrounding it.
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 7:17 pm | PermalinkJim, I agree with (almost) everything you say. Thanks for being here.
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 4:38 am | PermalinkI agree as well except with the idea of McKenzie as a Wallabies coach candidate!
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 8:58 am | PermalinkYep, Patrick. I reckon the Buffet Stalker has done his dash. He had a shocker for the Tahs this year. He murdered the electrifying Kurtley Beale’s entre into the big time by playing the hapless Sheahan (who is a league player, if I’ve ever seen one) at 9, and meanwhile completely missed Josh Holmes. Yet his classic, no-brainer, world-class, history-making, blunder, which still cracks up crowds at Paddington pubs everywhere, was selecting the wonderful inside-centre, Morgan Turinui, on the wing facing Bryan Habana. After that, I stopped returning Ewen’s phone calls.
If the Wallabies don’t disgrace themselves at the Cup, the next coach is most likely to come from the current assistants. For mine, I’m praying that we dump the fetish for former front-rowers. It’s high time we got a former back as coach to resurrect … yes, the running game, the great game, the Australian game.
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 1:21 pm | PermalinkHere’s one of those Nick’s – imagine facing this bloke on the charge. There are a few clips on YouTube of interest; might fish some out in time.
And on the other Nick – how would he go as coach? He seems to have matured, has an excellent perspective, and is player-strong. Connelly worries me for the hunger-to-win, Nick has that in abundance. Just wondering.
And that word again! Wilkinson.
We’ve a big task; starting to get the heebeejeebees.
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 6:07 pm | PermalinkAt the end of that clip above this site is advertised. A few rugby moments there worth a look.
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 6:19 pm | PermalinkI think Nick has the potential to be a fantastic coach. Does anyone know if he has tried his hand in the clipboard department?
Posted on 05-Aug-07 at 8:18 pm | Permalink