{"id":334583,"date":"2023-09-28T09:32:46","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T09:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=334583"},"modified":"2023-09-28T13:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T13:01:12","slug":"wrecked-former-wallabys-psychologists-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=334583","title":{"rendered":"'Wrecked': Former Wallaby's 'psychologists' warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Wallabies<\/a> fullback Greg\ufeff Martin has raised concern for the mental wellbeing of Australia's young players as they battle through the squad's dismal World Cup<\/a> campaign, even predicting "they'll need psychologists".<\/p>\n

Martin, who played nine Tests across 1989 and 1990,\ufeff also called for the number of Australian Super Rugby Pacific teams to be slashed from five to three.<\/p>\n

Australia opened its World Cup campaign with a 35-15 win over Georgia<\/a>, but a 22-15 defeat to Fiji<\/a> and a 40-6 thrashing at the hands of Wales<\/a> have followed.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 'You little liar': What Johnson whispered to Ponga<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 'How is he a rookie?' Dally M controversy explodes<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Rugby's desperate $1.6m offer to Origin star<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Barring a miracle, Australia is now on the brink of failing to advance from the pool stage of a World Cup for the first time, ahead of a game against Portugal on Monday morning (AEST).<\/p>\n

Martin said the young Wallabies players would require mental health treatment and argued that Eddie Jones<\/a> was not "soft" enough to be the man for the job.<\/p>\n

"The problem is he's become erratic and bizarre as he's now 63 and he doesn't have that soft touch," Martin said on Triple M radio.<\/p>\n

"What's the bloke who's coaching Collingwood? Craig McRae\ufeff. He's soft. Collingwood had big problems two years ago.<\/p>\n

"[Brisbane Lions coach] Chris Fagan is soft.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

"This is what these modern kids need.<\/p>\n

"[Former Wallabies coach] Dave Rennie, the Kiwi, was as boring as a chair, but he was soft.<\/p>\n

"They don't want to be told what to do.<\/p>\n

"Eddie Jones used to make blokes who were 120 kilograms, 130 kilograms cry, and I thought he might have got that out of his coaching technique, but no.<\/p>\n

"All these kids \u2014 they'll need psychologists, these kids.<\/p>\n

"They've been blown away, they'll be lucky to beat bloody Portugal on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

"He's wrecked them."<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST! Michael Atkinson, Sam Worthington and Tom Decent ask what next for Australian rugby as Eddie Jones, Angus Crichton and the game's bosses dominate the headlines<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/rugby-world-cup-inside-line\/playlists\/podcast\/embed?style=cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones returned as Wallabies coach in January, signing a five-year deal that would cover the World Cup in France and the 2027 World Cup on home soil.<\/p>\n

The veteran mentor's "erratic and bizarre" streak, as Martin described it, reared its head as he delivered a mind-boggling press conference before flying out to France for the World Cup<\/a>.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I jumped on the Eddie train in January," Martin said.<\/p>\n

"I went, 'Well that's what we need, we were going no good, we may as well try something new', but I didn't realise how bad this was.<\/p>\n

"Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper should have been picked.<\/p>\n

"Even if they didn't play … they would have been there for those younger guys to speak to.<\/p>\n

\"Wallabies<\/p>\n

"Those young kids don't want to speak to a 63-year-old coach; they want to speak to someone who's 32 and who's played 100 Test matches and ask them, "How do I work my way through this next time? How do I get through this tomorrow?".<\/p>\n

Jones made the astonishing decisions to axe Hooper and Cooper<\/a>\ufeff for the World Cup. Hooper has 125 Test caps and was Australia's captain before incumbent skipper Will Skelton, while Cooper has played 79 Tests.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies squad has an average age of 26 and a Tests-played average of 20, \ufeffthe lowest of an Australian World Cup squad since the 1991 tournament.<\/p>\n

"I've been to all nine World Cups before this, either commentating or in tour groups, and the reason I didn't go [to this World Cup] is because I didn't think they were good enough," Martin said.<\/p>\n

"We didn't have a good enough collection of players to make any impact.<\/p>\n

Watch all the action from Rugby World Cup 2023 on the home of rugby, Stan Sport.<\/strong><\/em> Every match ad free, live and on demand in 4K UHD<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

"I base this on how shit our five Super Rugby teams [are].<\/p>\n

"Going into the future we only need three \u2014 remember that.<\/p>\n

"You don't go from being losers playing Super Rugby to being winners when you put losers all together \u2014 it won't work.<\/p>\n

"I knew we didn't have good enough players so I went, 'I'm not wasting tens of thousands of dollars going to watch the Wallabies'."<\/p>\n

The five Australian Super Rugby Pacific teams are the ACT Brumbies, NSW Waratahs, Queensland Reds, Western Force and Melbourne Rebels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Wallabies fullback Greg\ufeff Martin has raised concern for the mental wellbeing of Australia's young players as they battle through the squad's dismal World Cup […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":334585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=334583"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334587,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334583\/revisions\/334587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/334585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=334583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=334583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=334583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}