When Mcgrath, Warne and Langer retired we replaced them with Clark, McGill and Jacques - and we kept winning. The problems started when Clark, McGill and Jacques stopped playing!
I don't think we are that bad. We have come up against a team that are white hot, had great preparation, no injuries and a hunger to win.
Cricket Australia should have a good look at themselves. The English arrived early this year and played three 1st class games against quality opposition. This while we rushed from England to India to Aus to play three meaningless one day games against Sri Lanka (why did we play these games?). Now England are playing another 1st class game against Victoria before the 3rd test and our players are not playing any games.
The selectors have made some questionable decisions:
Hauritz for Doherty - Hauritz gets a bad wrap. He's not as bad as some people make out - he's not Warne, but who is. Still the best spinner in the country but a fair way.
Dropping Hilfenhaus - whats going on there? I think he is the best bowler we have. One bad game and he's out? Does Bollinger now get dropped and Hilfenhaus bought back in without him playing a 1st class game since being dropped?
If we replace Katich with Hughes, North with Khawaja, Doherty with Hauritz, Bollinger with Hilfenhaus the team improves. Not sure if the selectors will pull the trigger on 4 changes though.
The other thing is that I'm not sure we need a spinner for every single game - pick the 4 best bowlers I think.
I think this is an exciting time too - plenty of guys will get an opportunity. It's unfortunate that Hazelwood and Starc are injured. I think they would have knocked on the door during this series. Also, McDonald (don't laugh) could have got a guernsey too if he wasn't injured. The guy is hard to score against, gets wickets and scored 3 centuries in two games for Victoria already this year.