Australian rugby woes the result of a crisis that runs deep in the game

Sinking feeling: Rob Simmons, Izack Rodda and Ned Hanigan after this month's 9-6 defeat by Wales in Cardiff — Australia's eighth loss of the year
AFP/Getty Images
Will Macpherson22 November 2018

You know the one about the Australian sport with a big English rivalry experiencing a crisis in 2018? It’s cricket, of course!

Sort of. A little bit of ball-tampering was followed a big bit of bloodletting and even more head-rolling as generation-long cultural degradation was brought into the sharpest focus.

Even the English are watching through their fingers now, and they are never afraid to revel in Australian sporting woe. Speaking of which, Thursday marks 15 years since Jonny Wilkinson’s drop-goal clinched the Rugby World Cup in Sydney.

What the sandpaper scandal showed, though, is quite how much cricket matters to Australians. Rugby union, meanwhile, has slowly slipped into a quieter crisis down under.

The Wallabies have endured what former coach Alan Jones described as “our worst season of Test rugby”. They lost a home series to Ireland, won two of six games in the Rugby Championship — including a first home defeat to Argentina in 35 years — then have lost two of their three matches since, including their first defeat to Wales in a decade.

In all, they have lost 12 of their last 17 matches, which would normally be sackable form for Michael Cheika, the coach who oversaw their revival at the 2015 World Cup, but the great Michael Lynagh said on the Times’ Ruck podcast earlier this week that Rugby Australia (RA) could not afford to get rid of him.

The problems beneath are greater, though. “Rugby as a whole, not just the national team, is struggling back home at all levels,” says former Wallaby James Horwill, who is now Harlequins captain. “There’s a fair bit of external negativity around the game.”

Participation, attendance and broadcast ratings (rugby is only on pay TV) are tumbling. Their best result of the year, victory over South Africa, came in front of 27,000 at 52,500-capacity Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

Australian Super Rugby sides have floundered since the competition began expanding. In 2017, Australian teams lost 26 of their 26 Super Rugby matches against their Kiwi counterparts. When the competition began to contract last year having overgrown, Australia shed a franchise, the Western Force, in the hope of saving cash and concentrating talent. The picture improved slightly this year, with the Waratahs enjoying a revival in reaching the semi-finals and the Reds and Melbourne Rebels also chalking up rare wins over Kiwi opposition.

The stories that have cut through in Australian rugby over the last 18 months are the damaging and drawn-out saga that was the disbanding of Force, star full-back Israel Folau’s interesting interpretation of the bible and the Wallabies’ poor form, especially against New Zealand. Australia have not won the Bledisloe Cup since 2002. It is felt that playing the No1-ranked team three times every year might actually be unhelpful for the Wallabies’ development.

In Pictures | England vs Japan | 17/112018

1/44

Like New Zealand and South Africa, there is a player-drain to the lavishly-paid leagues in Europe and Japan, not just of veterans like Horwill or Scott Fardy, but those in their prime, like back-row Sean McMahon. RA recently failed to persuade the 26-cap 24-year-old to return from Suntory in Japan for the World Cup. Horwill says there is no catch-all reason for players going overseas, putting it down to “individual circumstances”. Why has all this happened, then? Some poor administration certainly but, as Horwill explains, Australian sport — especially in winter — is “a very competitive marketplace”. Aussie Rules and Rugby League are more popular and the Socceroos and football are no longer a niche pursuit for diehards. Rugby has traditionally been a Queensland and New South Wales sport but AFL has muscled into those heartlands from its Victorian base.

Horwill believes top-level success can see a feel-good factor trickle down.

“In Australia we like to back a winner,” he says. “Our public find that important. This year the Wallabies haven’t had the greatest time but hopefully they can turn that around on Saturday.

“Wallabies players enjoy these last Tests, I remember the feeling well,” he says. “You throw everything at it. It’s the last game for this team, Australia won’t play again until June. It helps that it’s against England at Twickenham —there’s a good healthy rivalry and it’s an incredible place to play.”

Do not bet against that. Australia still arrive at Twickenham with a cast of stellar names and plenty of motivation. As John Mitchell, now England’s Kiwi defence coach but once of the Force and All Blacks, said yesterday: “One thing I do know about the Wallabies is they have that ability to turn up that one big performance.”

England, you have been warned.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT