Australia’s preparations can now begin in earnest with the appointment of Kevin Walters, who understands representative football from both the perspective of a player and as a coach.<\/p>\n
Like Mal Meninga, his predecessor, Walters was a decorated Kangaroos tourist in a career where he collected Australian premiership titles like some collect stamps.<\/p>\n
Walters, therefore, can appreciate the need to create bonds and experiences beyond the training paddock and pitch, those differences that make a Kangaroo tour – albeit without the club games these days – such a special experience.<\/p>\n
His time coaching Queensland’s State of Origin side also matches with Meninga’s CV. That will have given him experience of forging a gameplan and instilling togetherness quickly in a representative team – a very different set-up to that of the day-in-day-out club game.<\/p>\n
Coaching elite players in short bursts of time on a tour needs a different approach. You’re not developing basic skills; you’re trying to create an atmosphere that taps into the outstanding talent at your disposal. Walters has that ability.<\/p>\n
Unlike other names who were linked with the role – such as Cameron Smith, untried as a head coach, and Brad Fittler, who had a handful of seasons at the Roosters to speak of beyond his NSW and Lebanon stints – Walters can also back up his rep roles with considerable NRL experience as a boss.<\/p>\n
His last stint at the Broncos may have ended after a slump in form – but a year previously, they were in a Grand Final.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, Walters is enthusiastic. He understands the pride in wearing the green and gold.<\/p>\n
His toughest task might be persuading some of those Origin players who qualify for dual nationality, such as Hamiso Tabuai Fidow and Payne Haas, to side with the new-look Roos rather than family heritage.<\/p>\n
Such defections would be a loss but in Isaah Yeo, Nathan Cleary, Dylan Edwards, Patrick Carrigan and Cameron Munster, there are plenty of top players ready to answer the call this autumn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s preparations can now begin in earnest with the appointment of Kevin Walters, who understands representative football from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-14491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}