How Australia’s strategy can back fire before World Cup 2013?
Australia is ruling the world of Rugby League after their over whelming 30-8 win over England in the Gillette Four Nations Final, at Elland Road in Leeds. They had embarked on the series as favourites and lived up to the expectations by comfortably winning
the series.
After finishing the Four Nations 2011, the next big campaign all nations are eying for is, the Rugby League World Cup (RWC) 2013, which is scheduled to take place during the tail end of the year mentioned. None of the nations are ready to undermine their
chances of performing well in RWC 2013. Therefore, they will not compromise on the rigorous practice routines ahead of the mega sporting event of the year. For that matter, teams are either opting for, taking off from international game platform until the
RWC or they will continue playing until then.
Out of two of the stated options, Australia has gone for the former one, where as England has chosen to continue playing at international level for at least 2012.
Australia had already shared their future plans of going on a hiatus until RWC, which is one of the reasons, they desperately wanted to finish off their 2011 season on a high note by claiming Four Nations glory.
Their strategy is to make a routine rigorous training plan of their own instead of letting their player participate in the international games. In my opinion this is a smart strategy but it can back fire too.
Let’s talk about the good side of the opted option.
The bright side of this plan is that this way Australians will be able to concentrate on their weak areas by working on them regularly. They will easily get rid off of their weaknesses because players will be under the scrutiny of the coaching staff for
such a long period of time, which will hone them to perfection. If they have any shortfalls in their on-field skills or if they are repeatedly making same errors those can be ruled out through day in day out practice.
Moreover, I believe that the training schedule will be designed such that the players are neither drained out ahead of the RWC 2013 nor they will be completely out of practice. However, this relies entirely on the kind of schedule planned out for them, because
otherwise the same goody hiatus can very much cost the reigning champions heavily.
This brings up to the flip side of the Australia’s sabbatical. According to my viewpoint, the success of the plan is entirely dependent on how well Kangaroos plan out their absence from international games until 2013, because observing such a long break
may also mean that your on-field skills are getting rusted.
This means that Australians will be at disadvantage because England which is one of their top rivals will continue playing the international level games, which means by putting themselves out there in clash against the RWC 2013 contenders they are at a much
better position to make evaluations of their current skills. That can help them pin point the area in which they are lagging behind specifically instead of doing routine training, I think this is much better way to prepare yourself for the mega sporting event
lined up in 2013, as each match played, will serve as a mock of the RWC campaign.
In my view point, Australia should revisit their decision of going on a break for two straight years, because the plan can very much back fire too.