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<blockquote data-quote="smartcooky" data-source="post: 429827" data-attributes="member: 20605">Those are not his only problems:1. He is great when he has plenty of time to work his tricks, but cut his time and space down (the way the AB&#039;s did on Saturday) and the magic disappears. The AB&#039;s just ran straight at him, in twos sometimes, and effectively shut him down.2. When he&#039;s under pressure, rather than take the tackle and give his team the chance to regroup, he has a tendency to have a brain explosion, like the intercept pass to Conrad Smith, the midfield inside (forward) pass that was knocked on and the back of the hand flip on his own goal-line that came within a ace of being the AB&#039;s 4th try.Under the kind of defence the All Black put on him on Saturday, the answer is to give himself more room by standing deeper, but of course, all the tricky stuff then takes place too far behind the gain line to be useful.This is the fundamental difference between Cooper and players line Dan Carter or Jonny Wilkinson, or even Toby Flood. Cooper is every bit the equal of other great fly-halves...when he has room to move and execute. The difference comes when there is less time and space. That&#039;s where the great fly-halves shine, and Cooper becomes an also ran.EDIT: On topic, I don&#039;t think Australia would be overly worried if they didn&#039;t win again in the Tri-Nations. They will have lost to New Zealand and South Africa, neither of whom they are likely to meet unless they reach the final. Their quarterfinal opponent will probably be Wales, and the semi would likely be France (assuming NZ win their pool) or England.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="smartcooky, post: 429827, member: 20605"] Those are not his only problems: 1. He is great when he has plenty of time to work his tricks, but cut his time and space down (the way the AB's did on Saturday) and the magic disappears. The AB's just ran straight at him, in twos sometimes, and effectively shut him down. 2. When he's under pressure, rather than take the tackle and give his team the chance to regroup, he has a tendency to have a brain explosion, like the intercept pass to Conrad Smith, the midfield inside (forward) pass that was knocked on and the back of the hand flip on his own goal-line that came within a ace of being the AB's 4th try. Under the kind of defence the All Black put on him on Saturday, the answer is to give himself more room by standing deeper, but of course, all the tricky stuff then takes place too far behind the gain line to be useful. This is the fundamental difference between Cooper and players line Dan Carter or Jonny Wilkinson, or even Toby Flood. Cooper is every bit the equal of other great fly-halves...when he has room to move and execute. The difference comes when there is less time and space. That's where the great fly-halves shine, and Cooper becomes an also ran. EDIT: On topic, I don't think Australia would be overly worried if they didn't win again in the Tri-Nations. They will have lost to New Zealand and South Africa, neither of whom they are likely to meet unless they reach the final. Their quarterfinal opponent will probably be Wales, and the semi would likely be France (assuming NZ win their pool) or England. [/QUOTE]

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