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'That can make for a dangerous beast' - How the Waratahs and Australian rugby have vastly improved

The Waratahs embrace. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

During his time with the Highlanders, Tony Brown believed the Australian Super Rugby franchises were too predictable.

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His theory proved to be accurate as the New Zealand sides enjoyed an incredible 40-match winning run over their Australian counterparts in a streak that lasted two years.

However, the Sunwolves head coach said he has seen a vast improvement in the way the game was being played in Australia, with the Waratahs leading the charge in their nation’s development of gameplay tactics.

Speaking on the Fox Rugby Podcast in the lead-up to their clash against the in-form Daryl Gibson-coached side in Newcastle, Brown said it was becoming more difficult to scout Australian outfits due to their implementation of kick-based tactics.

“It’s interesting because when I was with the Highlanders the Australian teams tended to hold the ball for a long time and they always believed that that was the way to win games of rugby,” the  44-year-old said.

“I felt as though we always had an advantage there because we just knew what they were going to do, and then you could plan around that and put them under real pressure.

“But, from what’s happened in the last couple of years and definitely the development of the Waratahs’ rugby, their kicking game has become a real weapon for them, and when you’ve got guys like Israel Folau, the aerial game is now a massive part of the Waratahs game as well.

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“They’ve developed their game hugely in the last couple of years and are actually playing a lot more like the Highlanders did a few years ago.”

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Brown coached the Highlanders as an assistant to Jamie Joseph between 2013 and 2016, helping the franchise claim its maiden Super Rugby crown in 2015.

Following the departure of Joseph to the Japanese national side at the end of the 2016 campaign, Brown took the head coach title for the 2017 season, leading them to a quarter-final appearance.

He then followed Joseph to the Japanese national side and then Sunwolves, again as an assistant, but is now at the helm of the club that is set to face the axe from Super Rugby at the end of next year.

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Despite the dim future of the Tokyo-based club, Brown was optimistic of what his side can produce in their immediate future.

A win against the Waratahs this weekend would be an upset, especially considering New South Wales side’s shock 20-12 win over the back-to-back reigning champion Crusaders last week, but the Sunwolves nearly produced a victory in an enthralling 31-30 loss in the reverse fixture in Tokyo last month.

“The Waratahs will be pretty happy with themselves after an awesome win against the Crusaders, not many teams have been able to upset those guys in the last few years, so that’s a pretty awesome result for Gibbo and his boys,” Brown said.

“As far as our chances go, if we get our game right, we try and move the Waratahs boys around a bit and hopefully entice them into playing a bit of Sunwolves rugby like we did in Tokyo, then we’ll be able to potentially have a good old ding dong battle and something that could be quite entertaining.”

Watch – Waratahs head coach Daryl Gibson ahead of Sunwolves clash:

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J
JW 6 hours ago
How the four-team format will help the Wallabies defeat the Lions

Have to imagine it was a one off sorta thing were they were there (saying playing against the best private schools) because that is the level they could play at. I think I got carried away and misintrepted what you were saying, or maybe it was just that I thought it was something that should be brought in.


Of course now school is seen as so much more important, and sports as much more important to schooling, that those rural/public gets get these scholarships/free entry to play at private schools.


This might only be relevant in the tradition private rugby schools, so not worth implementing, but the same drain has been seen in NZ to the point where the public schools are not just impacted by the lost of their best talent to private schools, there is a whole flow on effect of losing players to other sports their school can' still compete at the highest levels in, and staff quality etc. So now and of that traditional sort of rivalry is near lost as I understand it.


The idea to force the top level competition into having equal public school participation would be someway to 'force' that neglect into reverse. The problem with such a simple idea is of course that if good rugby talent decides to stay put in order to get easier exposure, they suffer academically on principle. I wonder if a kid who say got selected for a school rep 1st/2nd team before being scouted by a private school, or even just say had two or three years there, could choose to rep their old school for some of their rugby still?


Like say a new Cup style comp throughout the season, kid's playing for the private school in their own local/private school grade comp or whatever, but when its Cup games they switch back? Better represent, areas, get more 2nd players switching back for top level 1st comp at their old school etc? Just even in order to have cool stories where Ella or Barrett brothers all switch back to show their old school is actually the best of the best?

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