Waratahs could help improve rugby’s popularity in Sydney with Super Rugby title

THE Waratahs’ quest for a title might be the best chance for rugby to regain a toe-hold in Sydney since Johnny Wilkinson’s famed drop kick.

Jono Lance of the Waratahs celebrates scoring a try during the Super Rugby match between the Queensland Reds and the New South Wales Waratahs. Pic Darren England.

The best World Cup since the last and the next one is over. Sleep deprived football fans will wake in October and find out if the A-League – and the Asian Cup in January - is enhanced by the interest it created, or pales in comparison.

The NRL emerges from the giant shadow cast by the Origin blinking in the spotlight. We have competition pregnant with possibility and dominated by local heavyweights. You might once have said things are bubbling along nicely – but not any more.

The Sydney Swans are the best team in the AFL, not merely the best paid. Lance “Buddy’’ Franklin is Plugger with a pirouette, southern counterparts are seething and the SCG is rocking like it’s 1996.

And yet, for all that, these next few weeks should belong to that other forgotten game. Rugby, is it?

The Waratahs’ attempt to win the Super Rugby title might represent the best chance for the code to regain a toe-hold in Sydney since Johnny Wilkinson wiped the smile from John Howard’s face with his sweetly struck drop kick.

Since 2003, there has been the very occasional Bledisloe Cup victory, a rousing British Lions tour and some excellent efforts by the Queensland Reds and the Brumbies to spike interest and clubs have been implanted in Perth and Melbourne.

But the burden of raising interest in Australian rugby still rests heavily on the Waratahs. And never has that weight been more crushing.

Leather arm patches were once a rugby stereotype. If the worst forecasts about the game’s financial plight are true, those patches will soon be required to cover holes in jerseys and players will have to bring their own half-time oranges.

How did it come to this? The most obvious reason is a born-to-rule mentality that ignored the threat posed by other sports and other diversions.

While the other members of the footballing alphabet soup – NRL, AFL, FFA - worked hard at the grassroots to grow or at least maintain support, rugby sat back in a leather armchair and smoked a pipe, deluded by the belief its big-end-of-town benefactors and private school constituency guaranteed prosperity.

The result? A competition that has been largely ignored by the general public and was consequently unappealing to the commercial TV paymasters. One that somehow managed to alienate even slavishly devoted fans with mind-bogglingly oblique rules, staggeringly inadequate promotion and, at the Sydney Football Stadium in particular, badly dated facilities.

Yet, in defiance of the old Paul Keating maxim, the Waratahs soufflé has risen again. Whether it is the canny coaching of Michael Cheika or the opportunistic recruiting of Israel Folau and Kurtley Beale, these ‘Tahs are both dynamic and authentic.

The first part is vital because the game needs to convince those who drifted away that 80 minutes at the rugger is again more entertaining than four hours of Norwegian shadow puppetry. Even more so the air of authenticity because there are scam emailers in Nigeria who have made less false promises than the ‘Tahs.

But while a Waratahs championship would do plenty for the game, it is how well they parlay their success at the box office, the merchandise outlets and the junior clinics that is vital. They need to create a buzz that means anything less than a full house for the first final in two weeks is a disappointment.

Super Rugby teams are beholden to their ARU paymasters to promote the game and help revive its bank account. Not self-funding entities with the luxury of allowing results to speak for themselves, and players to not speak at all.

Looking for proof? The Swans won an AFL premiership in 2005, yet suffered diminished membership because the tough, dedicated but introverted ‘’Bloods’’ refused to engage meaningfully with the wider public via the media.

In the past week the ARU has lost beloved cult figure Nick ’’Honey Badger’’ Cummins to Japan. The Waratahs’ fortnight in the sun has not started with reports of what Beale might do against the Brumbies or the Chiefs, but what he might do for the NRL’s Bulldogs next season.

Just more reminders that Australian rugby is under siege, and that opportunities like the Waratahs have created with their outstanding play must be grasped as firmly as any high ball.

Originally published as Waratahs could help improve rugby’s popularity in Sydney with Super Rugby title