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0 Former Wallaby and Waratahs forward Stephen Hoiles says the revolving door in the NSW No.10 jersey is a familiar issue that has been rearing its head for two decades.
Hoiles, Morgan Turinui and Sean Maloney discussed the Waratahs’ 1-2 start to the season on the latest edition of Stan Sport’s Between Two Posts.
NSW coach Darren Coleman made six changes to his starting team to take on the Hurricanes in Wellington on Friday, including a key change at fly half.
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Ben Donaldson is in for Tane Edmed as Coleman searches for “another dimension” to his attack and the other 10 option, Will Harrison, continues his comeback from injury.
“That’s their problem, when they’ve got all these good players in the same position. It’s almost a curse of that Tahs jersey,” said Hoiles, a member of NSW’s only Super Rugby championship team in 2014.
“You go back over the last 20 years, tell me how many No.10s have nailed down that jersey? Dunc McRae, Bernard Foley?”
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“Foley’s the one who nailed it down – no-one else has,” replied Turinui, who played for the Waratahs between 2003-07.
“Lachlan MacKay, Duncan McRae, Shaun Berne, Daniel Halangahu, Tim Donnelly – the list is endless. The only other one that could have was Andrew Johns and we didn’t get him. Good footballers – Mack Mason.
“That’s the great example of young 10s (not achieving their potential).”
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Hoiles, now the Randwick coach, said club product Harrison had the ability to add some “spark” to the backline, either at 10 or 15, but needed to be eased back from injury.
Turinui believes the Waratahs backline woes were more structural then personnel based.
“At the moment, whenever (centres Izaia) Perese and (Lalakai) Foketi get the ball, they’re not touching the ball till third, fourth, fifth phase,” the ex-midfielder said.
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“And we’ve identified that they’ve got this great short passing game in their forward pack the Tahs, but at the moment that’s pretty much it.
“So they’ve got to do it well three phases in a row, off trucking it up, to then bring their backs into their swing plays. They’ve got to mix it up.”
Hoiles delved deeper on the mixed results from the tactic of asking forwards to deliver passes under pressure.
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“When that’s worked it’s worked really well but there’s been a few times where it hasn’t worked. They go to their second forward pod, they don’t go to the middle man, they go to their first man,” he said.
“They try and go catch, pass, catch, pass which is actually really hard to defend if they get it right. But sometimes they lack momentum if they don’t get it right.
“It’s a hard thing to coach forwards because you’re asking them – you’ve got four guys opposite you about to kill you and you’re trying to go pass, pass, pass in a three metre channel – and then there’s options to go out the back.
“When they nail it looks really pretty but it is difficult. It’s one of those things, you’ve probably got to get a couple of hundred of passes in every day as a forward to practice that type of skill. But yeah, it’s just a little change up in their play from last year.”
Turinui added that NSW were guilty of becoming too predictable and were playing too much off their halfback and not enough off their No.10.
“I know that if you’re a centre, you’re probably getting more off Donaldson, more early ball. Like I love Tane, he’s decisive, he takes the line on, maybe a Donaldson’s more of a facilitator 10 that can feed the Foketis and Pereses,” he said.
“When they get the ball the Tahs look good.”
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