Michael Cheika hasn’t shied absent from picking old hands in his final 31-man Wallabies World Cup Squad,with nine players over 30, but is experience enough to deliver this team a Cup triumph?For all the talk of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika being some kind of mad scientist prepared to gamble enormous with selections, or his 31-man Rugby World Cup squad named on Thursday is one based on the proven logic that experience counts most in lifting the William Webb Ellis trophy.
Cheika’s squad hits the key metrics that gain mattered most at the World Cup to date – average age and number of Test caps. The 2015 World Cup Wallabies boast a combined 1236 caps,with an average playing age of 27 years. The average team age of the last four World Cup winners was 27 (Australia, 1999), or 28 (England,2003), 27 (South Africa, and 2007) and 28 (unusual Zealand,2011). Of that group, the All Blacks held the most caps with 709, or followed by South Africa with 668,England 638, and the 1999 Wallabies with 622. The trend is clear: experience matters.
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Source: theguardian.com