We're about six weeks away from the Wallabies taking the field for the first time in 2020 with Bledisloe I earmarked for October 10.
It'll be the first time that we get a look at the Wallabies under new coach Dave Rennie, who I believe has put together the best high performance coaching team since Eddie Jones' group of the early2000s.
Where Ian Foster already has his hands on the All Blacks, Rennie will have less than three weeks to get the Wallabies up to speed for the match.
Here's five crucial steps along the way he's got to get right before taking the field in Bledisloe I, which is shaping to be played in Brisbane.
BUILD AN AUTHENTIC CULTURE
It's actually something Cheik did really well when he first went went into the role.
I thought there was a lot of authenticity around the Wallabies' culture in 2014, it might have lost its way to be fair.
But something that resonates to the modern day player is vital, and it's not copying the All Blacks culture of "sweeping the sheds".
It's not something you can copy off anybody else.
Culture's one of those things that you have to develop yourself and needs to be quintessentially Australian as well, and Dave Rennie's going to have to take the lead from others around him.
CUT THE BAGGAGE LOOSE
When I think of the other important things, this is probably the best coaching group that we've put together for a long time.
This is an incredibly experienced coaching team with guys with vast international experience and with high performance with Webby (Chris Webb) as well.
This is close to our best coaching group that we've ever put together for the Wallabies, at least since Eddie Jones' coaching team of the early 2000s. Eddie had Alan Gaffney with him, Ewen McKenzie, John Muggleton and Glen Ella. That was a good stable, but this trumps it.
Matt Taylor who has won a Super Rugby title, Wisey (Scott Wisemantel) who has been in the system for a long time and around winning sides for a long while, with a couple of additions still to come.
In some ways, and I've seen this many many times, when teams have had periods of under performance they need to find a way to breakaway from the past and that's change.
The Crusaders needed to do that and going through a long under-performing period under Todd Blackadder as coach.
He was there for eight years and didn't win a title.
They had to change, they had to move away from the things of the past and get something new, and boom. They turned it around instantaneously and they won three titles and a fourth if you can include Super Rugby Aotearoa.
It wasn't that everything changed, but key people who have baggage of the past.
Moving beyond them creates a different culture, a different environment and a different vibe.
We've got to move beyond the past few years of losing.
For that reason alone we've got to change the culture.
We've got to cut some loose and create a winning environment.
First thing, find a hooker that can throw into the lineout under pressure. Alternatively, improve our hookers throwing ability. We just need to pick a hooker who can throw because Folau Fainga'a is probably the best hooker, maybe the best thrower, but it's hard to know. Outside of him, the rest can't throw. You can't pick Jordan Uelese as a Test hooker because he can't throw the ball in, and you limit so much of what you can do and you apply pressure to a team to win set piece ball so you've got to spend time now to try and improve the skill-sets of our hookers. The All Blacks have such a good defensive lineout that they'll chew us up.
We've almost got to ensure that we select our side based on the characteristics and the way that Dave Rennie wants to play and I know that sounds obvious but quite often we tend to select the best players and then go, well what can these blokes do. As opposed to looking at how Dave wants to play and then making sure that we match that and that might mean that players who are in good form or players who have been there before get left out. And there are certain players when I look across the backline for instance that are much better defensive players than they attacking players and the choice is do we want to play a defensive game where we kick a lot of ball and just rely on us defending well or are we going to play an attacking game, where we're going to pick our players based on who the best attacking threats are. They're the sort of choices that we've got to make around certain positions and players and people.
He always had an attacking mindset about his coaching. If i compare a coach like Jake White, Jake's a very defensive coach to Dave Rennie who is a very attacking coach.
I'm still a fan of picking a young side and trying to develop them and maybe it's a case of when there's a toss of the coin around selection pick youth rather than experience. This might be another point, but don't be constrained by the decisions of the past. Just because Cheik picked Hoops as captain, Hoops wouldn't be in my starting side pretty much ever as an openside for the Wallabies. Hoops got in there because he brings a lot of energy and all of that sort of stuff, but rarely has Hoops ever changed a game of Test rugby that I've watched whereas good opensides do. He had that game in Dunedi where he played very well that night but there aren't too many matches where he's won man of the match.
Culture?
An authentic culture. Build an authentic culture. It's actually something Cheik did really well when he first went went into the role. I thought there was a lot of authenticity around the Wallabies' cutlure in 2014, it might have lost its way to be fair. But something that resonates to the modern day player and it's not copying the All Blacks culture of sweeping the sheds. It's not something you can copy off anybody else. Culture's one of those things that you have to develop yourself and needs to be quintessentially Australian as well and Dave Rennie's going to have to take the lead from others around him. When I think of the other important things, this is probably the best coaching group that we've put together for a long time. In some ways, and i've seen this many many times, when teams have had pe periods of under performance they need to find a way to breakaway from the past and that's change, and i've seen it so many times. The Crusaders went through that period under Todd Blackadder as coach. He was there for eight years and didn't win a title. They had to change, they had to move away from the things of the past and get something new and boom, they turned it around instantaneougly and they've won three titles. It wasn't that everything changed, but key people who have baggage of the past. Moving beyond them creates a different culture, a different environemtna and a different vibe. We've got to move beyond the past few years of losing. From that reason alone we've almost got to change the culture. We've got to cut some loose and create a winning environment.
How do you move beyond the culutre. Ther'es been a culutre of losing within the Wallabies. How do you do that? Well you've got to change personel.
And maybe I'll touch on the coaching. This is an incredibly experienced coaching team with guys with vast international experience and with high performance with Webby as well. This is the best high performance coaching team that we've had for a long period of time. This is close to our best coaching group that we've ever put together for the Wallabies, at least since Eddie Jones' coaching team of the early 2000s. Eddie had Alan Gaffney with him, Ewen McKenzie, John Muggleton and Glen Ella. That was a good stable, but this trumps it. Matt Taylor who has won a Super Rugby title, Wisey who has been in the system for a long time and around winning sides for a long while and likely Dan McKellar and Petrus du Plessis.
