That approach sounds pretty much exactly how we'd get several years of huge gulfs between performances with halfback consistency/availability problems.

There's a difference between getting a team well drilled and ready for your halfbacks to take control of, and essentially expecting the halfbacks to do the coaching for you. For an analogy, I'd think of the team as a car. The halfback is the driver, not the mechanic. They have input and take control, but it's not up to them to build and constantly maintain it.

I've just read it again in context and still think it's cobblers. In a well-coached side, all the halfback should need to do a lot of the time is tell the players which play he is running, and then they would all know where they need to be and what they should be doing from strong preparation (done by the coaches, not the halfbacks, in training). Maybe you worded it badly, but your post really reads as if for each play the halfback needs to hold a quick conflab on the pitch to let all the players know their places.

As opposed to needing the halfback to do the same?

I thought that was the type of rugby everybody hated when we did play it.

World class in the bar though !!

yeah just realised i've named a top drinking line up there - any landlord would be pleased to see that gang come through his door

Not when we're winning away from home and seemingly trying to score from every play