Rugby’s road to redemption a slow burn after spectacular nosedive

Empty stadiums, record losses, a sacked coach: It’s grim times for the Waratahs, which means grim times for Australian rugby. Worse still, the road back appears a long one.

A year ago, rugby in Australia was in such a mess that no-one knew for certain whether the professional code would survive the global pandemic.

On the field, things had rarely been worse. The Wallabies had plummeted down the rankings after a disastrous 2019 World Cup campaign and the game had been brought to a screeching halt by COVID-19 and the border lockdowns.

But they were just minor problems compared to the unfolding crisis taking place behind closed doors.

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Rugby Australia (RA) was on the brink of insolvency with the then chief executive Raelene Castle in the last days of her job, under mounting pressure to quit.

The best players were packing their bags and heading overseas after being told their salaries were being slashed in half and dozens of loyal staff were about to lose their jobs because there was no money coming in and no broadcast deal beyond 2020.

Twelve months on, the worst is over. The game has a new television partner and most of the bloodletting has stopped but there’s still a lot of work to be done as the new chairman Hamish McLennan freely admits, telling The Daily Telegraph: “We’re off the canvas and we’re moving in the right direction but it’ll take years to fix everything.”

The Wallabies were on the receiving end of another beating from New Zealand in the Bledisloe Cup. Picture: Getty Images

THE GOOD

By his own admission, McLennan was shocked to see how bad things were when he took over last year so he’s had to make some tough decisions, not all of which have been popular.

There are some green shoots emerging that suggest brighter days are ahead, but McLennan is urging the game’s supporters to remain patient.

The money the game desperately needs is coming, he says, with private equity firms making serious noises about investing in the game here, just as they already have in Europe and are about to do in New Zealand.

RA is already locked in to host the 2025 British and Irish Lions Tour and is the overwhelming favourite to be awarded the 2027 Rugby World Cup — the two biggest cash cows in the sport.

The move to a trans-Tasman Super Rugby competition was a no-brainer because the old structure, involving teams from South Africa and Argentina, had lost its appeal while World Rugby’s recent announcement that it will fund two Pacific Island teams from 2022 is long overdue.

The free to air television figures for Super Rugby AU have remained stable, even after the NRL and AL seasons kicked off. The viewing figures for the opening match between the Waratahs and the Reds were 146,000. For round six, they were 147,000.

There are plenty of encouraging signs that the next generation of Wallabies are starting to emerge, while the performances of the Queensland Reds and ACT Brumbies suggest there is quality coming through the playing ranks.

Crowd numbers at games have bottomed out as experienced recently at the clash between the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds at Stadium Australia.

THE BAD

The constant closing and reopening of international borders has prevented RA from nailing down their fixture lists for the rest of the year.

While it is hoped that the crossover phase of trans-Tasman Super Rugby will proceed, nothing has been confirmed yet.

Similarly, there have been dates or venues set for the incoming French tour, pencilled in for the middle of the year, or the Rugby Championship, which Australia and New Zealand are both hoping to co-host, while the Spring Tour to Europe remains in limbo.

The Wallabies still do not have a main jersey sponsor after splitting from Qantas last year or a naming rights partner for the upcoming series against France and the Rugby Championship.

While RA is pleased with the free to air broadcast figures, the securing of a new deal hasn’t magically solved all of the game’s more pressing problems.

A new collective bargaining agreement with players has to be finished this year while the balance sheet is still not strong enough to enable RA to invest as much as it needs to support grassroots rugby.

And the performances from the Wallabies remains a major concern for a sport with a tradition of fairweather fans.

The excitement from Dave Rennie’s first match in charge of the Wallabies, when they drew away to the All Blacks, quickly evaporated when they ended 2020 with just one win from six matches, although three of those ended in draws, underpinning how fine the line is between success and failure.

The plight of the NSW Waratahs is having a disastrous effect on rugby in general in Australia.

THE UGLY

Rugby in Australia has always lived and died by the on-field success of its most popular teams — whether it’s at club, state or national level — so the abysmal state of the Waratahs is bringing the whole game down.

The sacking of Rob Penney last week is just the tip of the iceberg, because he’s partially been made a scapegoat for all the other problems that have contributed to the team’s worst start to a season in history, with five successive losses, some of them record defeats.

Waratahs coach Rob Penney became a casualty of the club’s fall from grace.

There are some talented young players in the Waratahs but not even the most optimistic NSW supporter can stomach what’s going on right now.

This is a team that used to pack out stadiums whenever they played but the stands are so empty now that officials didn’t even bother to reveal the crowd attendance from last weekend’s 46-14 loss to the Reds at ANZ Stadium, the same ground where the Waratahs attracted over 60,000 for the 2014 Super Rugby grand final.

And although the free to air viewing figure of 147,000 was more than double for the corresponding match last year, it’s still a far cry from the 2011 Super Rugby final, which attracted more than half a million viewers.

Other sides are drawing good crowds, but that’s all part of the catch-22 situation Rugby Australia has found itself in because of the failings of past administrations.

Instead of talking about exciting players like Joseph Suaalii, who could have been playing for the Waratahs this season but is instead one of the new poster boys for the NRL, everyone’s talking about the game’s problems.

With no money to retain the best players, they don’t have the players to generate new money after a staggering exodus of big name players over the last 18 months, which includes: David Pocock, Will Genia, Kurtley Beale, Samu Kerevi, Bernard Foley, Rory Arnold, Quade Cooper, Christian Lealiifano, Sekope Kepu, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Tolu Latu, Nick Phipps, Adam Coleman, Curtis Rona and even Michael Hooper, the Wallabies and former Waratahs skipper.

“The Waratahs are currently in a challenging situation but they’re taking steps to rectify that, which is pleasing,” McLennan said.

“We’ve all had a very difficult year last year but we have more stability in the game right now than we’ve had for quite some time and we’re moving forward.”

Originally published as Rugby’s road to redemption a slow burn after spectacular nosedive