Aussie rugby struggling to adapt: Connolly

Jun 22, 2017 - 1:05 AM Former Wallabies coach John Connolly says Australian rugby is struggling so badly on the field because it hasn't adapted well to changes in the game.

For a second consecutive season Australia will have only one team in the Super Rugby playoffs, having remarkably lost their last 29 games straight against New Zealand team dating back to round 14 last season.

Meanwhile the Wallabies have lost 11 of their last 18 Tests since making the 2015 World Cup final following the much-criticised home defeat by Scotland last weekend.

"Knuckles" Connolly, the Wallabies' coach in 2006-07, says Australia has a lot of issues to address in the way the game is played and needs to do it from both the top down and bottom up.

He wasn't critical of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, though he was bemused by the selection of Test rookie Karmichael Hunt in the unfamiliar position of inside centre.

Connolly felt Australian rugby had to catch up in core areas of the game and was also struggling to keep pace with the high-octane style evolved in New Zealand, England and other leading northern hemisphere nations.

"Scrum, lineout, goalkicking, we have to have a good look at that," said Connolly, who is a councillor on Queensland's Sunshine Coast these days.

"i think the different defence patterns that we employ these days, you have to fix up.

"Our adaption to the modern game has not been good so that's a problem for us.

"You've got to work from the bottom up and the top down, I think that's an important point to make.

"I'm hoping a lot more will be done at schoolboy level.

"We need the best possible coaching. There has to be a national approach in some ways to appointing our state head and assistant coaches."

Connolly, a longtime coach of Queensland before getting the Wallabies' job, supports the reduction of Australian Super Rugby teams to four.

But he believes Super teams should be retained in both Victoria and Perth despite the fact that the Australian Rugby Union has committed to cutting one of them.

Connolly wants Super Rugby teams in the four most populated cities and feels that the Brumbies and Rebels should be amalgamated, with the side playing primarily out of Melbourne.

He said it would be a backward step to remove the Force and have all the Australian Super Rugby franchises located on the east coast.

"It would just be mind bogglingly bad," Connolly said.

"I think the four teams is a good idea.

"If we make a decision for 10 years time, for the development of rugby is four teams from our major centres.

"The Brumbies could still play some games in Canberra."

Source: AAP