Tour showed Wallabies future is exciting: Robbie Williams

[travelling_gerry]

Tour showed Wallabies future is exciting: Robbie Williams make that Deans Foxsports.

December 01, 2009

Australia coach Robbie Deans has arrived home from the Wallabies' spring tour to Japan and Europe declaring his young squad has an exciting future.

Like the rest of their season, the Wallabies had mixed results on the tour, winning two Tests, losing two and drawing one, but Deans says the step up taken by several young players bodes well for the future.

He says the development of backs Will Genia and Quade Cooper and forwards David Pocock, Ben Alexander and Benn Robinson as strong Test players on the tour was one of the big plus points.

Fullback Adam Ashley-Cooper says he believes the convincing last match win over Wales represents a turning point for Australia heading into next year.

And prop Robinson says Australia's scrum still has plenty of improvement left despite their commanding performance against Wales and generally strong efforts throughout the tour.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...016959,00.html

[pieter blackie]

Robbie Williams??????

[travelling_gerry]

Straight from Foxsports!

[pieter blackie]

Straight from Foxsports!

yea I saw LOL

[brokendown gunfighter]

bit of an entertainer,our Robbie!

[The InnFORCEr]

He's just doing it for the kids

[Flat-top]

I am sure an out and out competitive supporter will not agree the tour was a complete success but I think Australia, and presumably by association Robbie Deans took a massive gamble in including so many new and inexperienced squad members and IMHO it has begun to pay dividends and I believe will increasingly do so in the future.

Yes of course you would all like to watch your side winning every game but just look at the stark contrast in the path Martin Johnson is leading England down. He is to this day reluctant to ditch his old war-horses from the WCup winning squad (god it pains me to admit they won it) and instead shores-up his creaking squad with has-beens rather than looking to blood new talent.

I think in MJ's position I would have come clean and admitted to the world that England were prepared to sacrifice results in the short term in order to build for the future, a risky policy but one that Robbie seems to have convinced the ARU that was worth the short term pain. England should have used the recent tests to give much needed experience and perhaps even declared the upcoming 6 Nations Tournament as a developmental process rather than put out teams that at best tried to nullify oposition and were lacking in the ideas department right across the squad.

Of course I am giving Robbie the benefit of doubt that this rebuild was entirely planned and for that I think he should be applauded...I guess for most of you though unless and until you beat the AB's you won't be convinced

Long may the Australian team improve (except of course when you play Ireland in the WCup stages ) and lets hope in the same vein that MJ continues to delay Englands resurgance

[GIGS20]

I don't think all of the rebuild was planned, look at our injury list. But you can see the hallmarks of such a policy all over this team FT. Genia, Pocock, JOC, to a lesser extent Cooper. If he had of been going the MJ route, we would have seen Burgess (or perhaps Valentine, maybe even Sheehan), Smith, AAC (actually Fullback, utility back would have been a bit forced ATM) and probably a far more conservative cover for Barnes (Likely AAC with Cross outside him)

Deans has had his hand forced in some slots around the field. The only two perplexing ones are Mitchell and Giteau, but to be fair, they did play well against Wales.