After the Eddie Jones and Hamish McLennan-engineered fiasco at the World Cup, Australian rugby is in urgent need of some redress. It must restore some self-respect, and banish the backwash of global ridicule left by the trail of that tournament.
Nobody will be laughing harder and longer than New Zealand but those guffaws will die down quickly. There will be rather more than a touch of genuine concern in the Land of the Long White Cloud that their closest rivals are no longer providing the stern, meaningful tests that they presented 15 or 20 years ago. New Zealand does not want an ailing, introspective Australia; it needs the devil-may-care, robust reputation-killer
Australian rugby can start the long journey back from its own private underworld by demanding respect from its traditional foes across the Tasman in Super Rugby Pacific. Consistent performances on the field, from all five franchises, will go a long way to reestablishing pride in the game and make the job of the new Wallabies coach – whoever they may be – a whole lot easier.
The two Australian ‘expansion’ franchises, the Melbourne Rebels and the Western Force, will be key to the remedial operation. They may be providing important pathways for aspiring professional players at home, but at some stage both clubs need to start winning more than they have been losing to gain credibility. That is what sporting teams are ultimately designed to do – win games on the battlefield of their choice.
If either or both can enjoy a play-off-worthy season in 2024, they will be reversing the tide of history. Since their inception in 2011, the Rebels have never enjoyed a Super Rugby season featuring overseas opposition with more wins than losses. The Force’s journey started five years earlier, back in 2006. All they have to show for 17 years of development is two winning seasons in 2008 and 2014. Neither was enough to earn them a play-off berth.
It has been a rocky road for both franchises. In 2017, the Force were one of three clubs cut loose when Super Rugby contracted from 18 to 15 teams. As the axe fell, Rugby Australia muttered darkly about “commercial realities which are linked to declining on-field performance across our Super Rugby teams, which has put Australian rugby in a position where it can no longer sustain five teams”.
Backed by the financial support of prominent WA entrepreneur Andrew Forrest, the Western outfit fought tooth and nail to survive, and survive they did. Within three short years, the Force were back as one of five Australian sides competing in a Covid-afflicted Super Rugby AU 2020.
The Rebels also have a chequered history, and even the latest chapter in the story suggests they remain under extreme pressure, wavering on the cliff edge of financial sustainability. In the week before Christmas, the unwelcome news broke the franchise was $9m AUD in debt, with one of its primary backers, BRC Capital, facing its own solvency issues. Rugby Australia has had to take out an $80m AUD bridging loan of its own until the British and Irish Lions visit in 2025, so no help will be coming from that direction.
RA chief executive Phil Waugh pulled off a fine political balancing act in his comments, apparently backing the five-team format while somehow simultaneously keeping all his options open: “We’ve got five teams, and we’re committed to five teams.
“It’s about how creative we get in filling those teams to ensure we’ve got five competitive teams.
“Everything is on the table in terms of the growth of the Wallabies performances, and what will feed through to us being number one or two in the world.”
The plain truth is the Rebels and Force must start winning if Super Rugby Pacific is to gain credibility and attract new sponsors and improved broadcasting deals in future. It is time for the white noise of the ‘development-is-more important-than-winning’ background to be tuned out, once and for all.
Both franchises have taken some positive steps towards improvement in the off-season. The Force should enjoy more tactical direction at half-back with Brumbies veteran Nic White and the last number 10 of the Jones era, ex-Waratah Ben Donaldson, in run-on harness; at the same time, they have lost significant cutting edge in the back three with the departures of Englishman Zack Kibirige and Fijian monster Manasa Mataele.
But it is the Rebels who have made the biggest strides forward, adding Taniela Tupou and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto where it really matters – in the front five – and sevens star Darby Lancaster to their backfield. There is real depth in the front row, where Cabous Eloff may now shift back to his preferred spot at loose-head to partner the Tongan Thor at prop, with Matt Gibbon, Sam Talakai and Pone Fa’amausili backing the pair up. Potentially, Salakaia-Loto and emerging 6ft 8ins colossus Josh Canham can form a top-class partnership in the second row behind them.
Tupou is an apt symbol for the current state of Australian rugby. His combination of physical size, power, and a unique ball-running skillset provoked an enormous tug-of-war between Australia and New Zealand when he first emerged from age-group level, but the prodigious talent in that massive frame has only been evident in spectacular fits and starts since. The time has come for the Tongan Thor to discover the weight at which he can operate without attracting injury, and fulfil the promise he flashed so often as a schoolboy.
It is symptomatic you have to roll the clock back a couple of seasons to discover his finest work. At his best, Tupou is one of the most destructive tight-head scrummagers anywhere on planet rugby.
Those are no mugs to whom Tupou is meting out the punishment in two of the three clips, they are two of the finest loose-heads in the world: France’s Cyrille Baille and a star of the recent World Cup, Ox Nche. The man in the middle is none other than the latest Queensland Reds recruit, ex-Blues loose-head Alex Hodgman. Like Baille, he is probably as surprised as any spectator to discover his feet keep parting company with Mother Earth as the pressure from Tupou ratchets up.
The big point of difference with Tupou – and probably the reason New Zealand campaigned so hard to cultivate his Kiwi identity – is the sheer range of his ball-carrying. He is one of only a handful of props across the rugby world equally comfortable handling in all three channels of an attacking field.
He can do the hard yakka off nine and win collisions against the toughest first receiver defence in the game.
He can play off 10 and run the precise lines required to find holes against defending backs in midfield.
At the other end of the scale, he can function effectively on the edge, running and offloading in the wide channels with devastating results.
There are plenty of front-rankers who can operate with power off the base of the ruck, a few who can run and handle proficiently in the middle of the field off the second pass, but hardly any who can operate like an extra back in the 5m channel. Tupou has the potential to be that special.
The problem for both the player in particular, and Australian rugby in general, is that rightfully we should have no business talking about a seasoned international player, now 27 years old with more than a half-century of Wallaby caps to his name, still sitting in the waiting room of ‘promise’ and ‘potential’.
If he had chosen the second option and decided to play his provincial rugby in New Zealand and represent the All Blacks, would we still be asking the same question and still awaiting an answer? I doubt it. The inherent, muscular psyche of New Zealand rugby would have detected both his strengths and his weaknesses, fortifying the one and patching up the other. It would have found out early on whether there was a Test-match animal remaining, after Tupou had been sieved, cleaned and polished up.
Australia is historically a nation of sporting winners, but even the most patient of Aussie rugby supporters are still waiting, after 27 combined seasons, for the Force and the Rebels to do what all sporting teams target as their first priority: to start winning games consistently and by doing so, create a winning culture.
A chain of climbers can only move at the speed of its slowest link, and in that sense Australian rugby cannot advance significantly until either team produces a winning season and reaches the play-offs. Until the situation at Super Rugby level improves, there will be no Wallaby mountaineers planting their flags at the summit.
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