Rugby World Cup: Wallabies fans have equal reason to hope and worry
Winning is the bonus, not the expectation for Australia’s long suffering rugby fans, writes JULIAN LINDEN, will things change at this World Cup?
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The Wallabies have always been a team for the dreamers.
Neither the most successful Australian sporting side, nor the most popular, they remain one of the most respected, as much for their failings as their successes.
The Wallabies have experienced plenty of both.
Punching above their weight for generations against ruthless opponents, both abroad and at home, the Wallabies have featured in four of the nine Rugby World Cup finals ever held, claiming the sport’s most coveted prize twice (in 1991 and 1999).
It is an astonishing record but perhaps more significantly, they have achieved something even less likely along the way, raising the waning profile of Australian rugby union to become one of the country’s flagship international sporting teams.
Just visit any backpacker hostel in Bali, Old Blighty or the Big Apple, and you’ll always spot a Wallabies gold jersey.
For a team that was once regarded as an emblem for white-collar, private school elitism, that’s the sideline conversion that wins the game right there.
Like the Matildas, the Wallabies have evolved into an enduring universal symbol for all the Aussie battlers who fantasise about competing on the global stage.
Winning is the bonus, not the expectation.
That’s why tens of thousands of Australians will be trying to redeem their missing frequent flyer points and heading to France in support of the Wallabies, knowing full well the team has only a slim chance of regaining the Webb Ellis Cup.
But while they may be one-eyed true believers, the Wallabies’ long suffering supporters should not be mistaken for fools because they are not happy about where the team now sits.
Measured against their past successes, the decline of the Wallabies has been excruciating for all Australian sports lovers to watch.
From worldbeaters to easybeats, they have fallen to ninth in the world rankings and lost all five Test matches they have played this year.
Suffice to say, optimism is low heading into the World Cup, but hope springs eternal with the tournament kicking off next weekend.
Acknowledging that any passive approach won’t fix anything, the demand and will for seismic change has arrived with the sport‘s showcase event looming as the perfect time to start steering the ship away from the rocks towards calmer waters.
Rugby Australia has already been awarded the hosting rights for the 2027 (men’s) and 2029 (women’s) Rugby World Cups but the chairman and CEO know that nothing will spread the rugby gospel quicker than drinking from the holy grail.
And for all the team’s present woes, the Wallabies are not without a fighting chance of doing something special in France.
Most betting markets have the Australians listed as fifth favourites – in a field of 20.
But as the four teams above them are all in the same half of the draw, only two will make it as far as the semi-finals, which gives the Wallabies a distinct advantage because they are on the easier side of the competition – in the same pool as Wales, Fiji, Georgia and Portugal.
They need to beat at least three of their group opponents to advance to the sudden-death knockout phase, with England and Argentina looming as their most likely quarter-final opponents.
If the Australians do get to the last four, and there’s every reason to believe they will – anything is possible.
As the previous Rugby World Cups have all shown, it pays to expect the unexpected.
For the Wallabies, what is expected of them is reaching the semi-finals but going no further.
Anything beyond that will be regarded as a blinding success, but anything less will be deemed a massive failure.
Reappointed in January after Dave Rennie was sacked following three years of dismal results, Jones has promised to return Australian rugby to the glory days.
A one-man headline who loves the spotlight and doesn’t care who he upsets, he has taken the nuclear approach to getting things right: blowing everything up and starting all over again.
Going against convention, he picked a young and relatively inexperienced squad for the World Cup – including 25 rookies.
Then he discarded the old tried-and-tested leadership group and appointed two left-field captains to run the team on the field – selecting giant lock Will Skelton as skipper and livewire halfback Tate McDermott as his deputy.
With no time to waste, his biggest gamble has been to bet the house on exciting young five-eighth Carter Gordon, selecting him not only as his go-to playmaker but also his first-choice goalkicker.
That’s serious pressure for a young man still finding his feet in the international arena.
If his radical plan works – Jones is zero and five from his first five games in charge – Jones will be hailed a genius and will remain at the helm through to 2027.
But if it fails, his head could be the next on the block, followed quickly by the administrators who gave him the job.
The stakes could hardly be any higher, but for the stargazers, that’s why the Wallabies are forever their team.
“If we don’t win, then it will be a failure. But there are other ways to be successful,” Jones said.
“If we come back and if everyone in Australia is talking about how good the Wallabies were at the World Cup, and how excited they were about watching them play, then we will have had some success.”
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