The question must now be asked why Australia is losing so many more players through injury than its two regular adversaries, who take part in the same tournaments?
Kingplaymaker, The Roar
Firstly, it should be made clear that most of these injuries occurred at state level, or if during Wallaby training or play they are largely recurrences of injuries suffered with the franchises. Though of course, the fanatical anti-Deans cult would delight in blaming them all on him.
One idea is that Australian franchises insist on heavy weight training to make up for a perceived or real lack of physicality with respect to their New Zealand or South African foes. Perhaps after being out-muscled, the instinctive response of the fitness gurus is to lift big.
Another is that there may be over-exertion across the board because of the tremendous challenges faced against New Zealand and South African Super Rugby teams, and that strain and a lack of confidence lead to physical tension and stress which, in turn, generate injuries.
Is it a general style of fitness training in Australian sport, maybe the mistake of applying training ideas better suited to one sport in another, given the choice of systems from two other broadly similar codes close to hand?
Perhaps coaches don’t rest or rotate players enough, and expect their best to carry match after match, something less necessary in New Zealand where the replacement is often as good as the starter.
These are all little more than tentative suggestions. The author has not fathomed the source of this epidemic. One thing is clear though, if the malady is not remedied next season, the Wallabies will need divine intervention to put a competitive team on the field again.
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October 2nd, 2012 at 12:04 am
Must say I quit enjoy seing them suffer, not the players but o niel and company driven by money, you asking why simple too much rugby, even RSA suffer from playing too much rugbY, players carreers will just get sorter and sorter because of supershit
October 2nd, 2012 at 3:58 am
Hard to answer… there was some good comments on the above site… I think even BiltongBek was in amongst them…
Personally I don’t think Aussie coach’s rotate their players any less… take one look at the Brumbies and how well they rotated their players all season creating some depth out of nothing…
October 2nd, 2012 at 4:38 am
Lack of depth / inhuman schedule / bad luck who knows.
The injuries this team is carrying though is just epic.
That’s why the SB victory Saturday needs to be taken with not a grain – but a handful of salt.
Griquas could have done similar to the Wallabies ( on hard ground of course (:
But maybe that’s not a fair comparison – after all, Griquas do have the South African version of Quade Cooper – you guessed it….Messerschmitt-Willie LeRoux.
And one last thing….
Messerschmitt-Willie > Jaco Taute
October 2nd, 2012 at 5:07 am
Reply to Americano @ 4:38 am:
Taute has better defence and played just as well in a worse team in all 3 positions… in fact he is a similar player to J Fourie… but with a better kicking game
October 2nd, 2012 at 5:41 am
You get soft living in Australia so the players too.
Its a team in disarray withh serious bad karma. When things go worng they snowball and get worse especially the physce side of things.
It wont be the first time the Wallabies players kill a coach of from the inside. Must be the ghost of Matt Giteau.
October 2nd, 2012 at 5:49 am
Reply to Kevin Rack @ 5:41 am:
Bad rugby Karma… now I’ve heard everything… lol!
Aussies ALWAYS bounce back in sport they’re too smart and too proud… it’s in their nature… inherent from the early Diggers to the current…
October 2nd, 2012 at 6:28 am
Heh! The memories are short. The Boks have also had times when there just seems to be an endless list of injured players. Over training and too many games must make a huge contribution to the sick parade.
Even the AB’s have had their injuries, but somehow always have a back up player who has had a game or two, often against teams not in the top tier.
October 2nd, 2012 at 6:43 am
Reply to bryce_in_oz @ 5:07 am:
Bryce Messerschmitt-Willie can also play fly-half in a pinch besides 11,14 & 15.
I know how you love that flexibility ( more capacity for that 5/2 bench split you like so much).
I know you didn’t miss that point so the real question is what’s with this insistence on Taute?
I’ve got no prob with him unless it works against you-know-who.
If Taute owes you money – I can understand – but at least divulge your interest so readers can take that into consideration.
I just hope HM includes him in the EOYT because I have a feeling Australia is going to be looking for their Quade Cooper replacement in 2013 and no better guy for that than ….M-WLR.
October 2nd, 2012 at 7:18 am
Reply to mawm-the-ever-hopeful-shark @ 6:28 am:
Yep agreed… more noticeable in times of freak injuries… the Aussie’s will always have a super competitive 35 man squad… take out the 20 now missing and things always look extremely dire…
Reply to Americano @ 6:43 am:
Did you know that Taute’s favourite position is/was 10?
Would you drop Willie into 13 right now at test level based on his performances (particularly defensively) this S15 season… Taute was less of a gamble IMO (even though it was one)…
M-WLR is going to have to have a blinder next year… or the injuries are going to have to pile up heading into the EOYT’s for him to make the extended squad…
October 2nd, 2012 at 10:26 am
I am again going to ask the question: Is there any research out there about the link between the higher occurence of injuries and all the supplements these guys are pumping into themselves?
Also something that I noticed recently is how out of proportion some of the Wallaby players’ upper legs are in relation to their lower legs. Nevermind research that I read on how muscles must be trained in balance, just common knowledge of basic hinge and support physics will tell you that weaknesses will occur if it is out of proportion.
I think image has overtaken practicality in some of these guys’ training program.
October 2nd, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Same thing happened in 2005 when they blamed Eddie for 18 injuries. Then they fired him.
October 2nd, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Reply to Deon @ 10:26 am:
Back when I spent some of my time in a gym, I was told that calf muscle size is pretty much fixed by your genetics and will not increase in size through weight training by the same ratio as the rest of your leg. It does not mean the calf muscle is weak, it gets plenty strong from the training, it just does not grow in size like the upper leg.
Many of the more serious guys had these out of proportion legs. Silicon implants were supposedly the only solution.