While the Wallabies have lurched from one disaster to the next in their failed 2018 campaign, behind the scenes the Queensland Reds are completely overhauling the way the basics of the game are taught.

Tired of seeing talented young players lacking basic scrum, passing and lineout techniques, the coaching advisory panel aims to arrest the mediocrity strangling rugby at the elite level.

Alarm bells started ringing about the way rugby is taught and played in Australia long before the Wallabies posted just four wins from their 13-test schedule in 2018 and it’s been the struggling Queenslanders who have enlisted the help of Dick Marks, Alec Evans and David Clark to move towards a new centralised coaching syllabus from under-6 right up to the elite level.

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Can Brad Thorn’s Reds set a new blueprint to rebuild Australian rugby? Source: AAP

The key feature is an online video bank of correctly performed drills from all aspects of the game, allowing coaches of all levels to learn proper techniques before passing them on to their players.

The newly appointed Queensland Reds Director of Coaching Pat Richards says: “There have long been plans in place to identify the talented kids who play the game, but this hasn’t been the case for coaches and in many cases the player’s skillset just isn’t there from a very young age.

“I’ve coached representative U/15 sides where the kids don’t know how to bind in a scrum or jump in a lineout. They just haven’t been coached correctly, so the idea is to identify and nurture coaching talent. Believe it or not, it’s never been done before.”

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The Wallabies have gone from bad to worse in 2018. Source: Getty Images

Along with Alec Evans, David Clark, QRU Chairman Jeff Miller, Pat Richards and Brad Thorn, the Reds Coaching Advisory Panel is orchestrating a test case with the backing of Rugby Australia to create a blueprint for the Reds’ long term success.

“The system, in conjunction with Rugby Australia, would provide every coach in Queensland from U/6-U/16 with vision lodged on a centralised domain containing drills and games so any coach can log on and coach the required drills in the correct manner,” Richards says.

The vision has been collected over three separate shooting dates at Easts Rugby Club and the University of Queensland in Brisbane in consultation with Professor Cliff Mallett from UQ’s School of Human Movement.

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Alec Evans (left) pictured with former Reds coach Ewen McKenzie. Source: News Limited

Primary schoolchildren from Belmont State School from different age groups and genders with little exposure to Rugby performed the drills, tackling, bindings, jumping and passing.

‘A new structure for the way the game is coached, how it is delivered and the upskilling of those who are delivering it. This is what’s been identified as what’s going to make Queensland the best province in Australia and eventually the world,” Richards says.

While a National Coaching Panel has been mooted by Rugby Australia in the past, it appears to have been bogged down in its implementation by politics between the various unions.

The Reds have simply bypassed the political stoush and taken the baton, with the man who drove the National Coaching Committee in the 70s, Dick Marks, at the helm.

“Queensland used to be innovative in both coaching and playing. Under Dick Marks and Alec Evans, Australia created a coaching identity and with it came a playing identity which was incredibly successful, so what we’ve done is brought some of the best rugby brains in the world back into the fold,” says Reds interim chief executive David Hanham.

Rugby Australia has the vision, but at this stage the centralised coaching model designed to restructure coaching and how it is delivered is yet to be launched.

“Our focus is on Queensland, the resources have been provided by Rugby Australia and we’ve simply taken them up on it and we believe put their funding to good use,” says Hanham.

With the 2019 Super Rugby season and the World Cup in Japan fast approaching, Rugby Australia’s scheduled December 10 board meeting has plenty to discuss.