Why the Wallabies aren’t Wobblies, but rather plucky underdogs and overachievers
FOR all those gleeful critics who love to stick the boot in to the Wallabies when they are down - the ones who love to hate on Australian rugby - I have a three word message.
Rugby
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rugby. Followed categories will be added to My News.
I HAVE a three word message for Wallabies haters.
To the critics who love to deride a team that can’t beat the All Blacks
For the knockers who never watch a game of Super Rugby and yet revel in the fact that Aussie teams are regularly beaten in the tournament.
And it’s this — get over it.
Oh, and get some perspective while you’re at it.
A narrow loss to Argentina was the latest ‘disaster’ to strike Australian rugby.
Before that, the Wallabies were thrashed by the All Blacks — again — and prior to that the ‘plucky’ Irish beat the men in gold over a three Test series.
The Wallabies have played six Tests on home soil in 2018 for just two victories.
It’s a crisis say plenty. Sack the coach! Sack the players! ‘Find someone who cares to wear the jersey’ say others.
Spare me the outrage.
Rugby is a minnow sport in this country. It’s the fourth football code in terms of participation and that’s a distant fourth.
Rugby union is played by just 1.2 per cent of Australian children and is not among the top ten club sport registrations for children or adults.
Almost double the number of Aussie kids train karate than the intricacies of how to ruck and maul.
Australian rugby currently has the tenth most registered males in world rugby.
Currently ranked seventh in the world and runners-up from the most recent World Cup, Australian rugby is not where its supporters or fans would want it to be.
But where it is, is not a crushing national shame. It is not a reflection that the players selected are not trying, or that the national coaching structure is not working.
It is reality. The Wallabies should be considered underdogs when playing more Tests than not.
Not because of a lack of talent and application — rather Australian rugby is returning to the mean after recent periods of exceptional performance.
In some ways the current Wallabies are a victim of the teams we fielded from the 1990s through to the early 2000s.
Those squads boasted seven or eight genuine World XV contenders and had the talent where it matters in rugby — strong front rows, safe lineouts, fierce fetchers, accurate goalkickers and playmakers who could dictate the gameplay to the opposition.
Australian rugby lacks the depth to produce strong squads and instead has always relied on being able to field a first XV that at their best can beat anyone.
In truth that’s the case for all but three other nations in world rugby.
The All Blacks are the best. Hands down, their winning strike rate of 77.5 per cent is a couple of standard deviations better than any other team in the world.
England can rely on a massive player pool, fielding almost 20 registered males for every one Australian player, and that depth combined with the millions of pounds that flow into the game every year give the Three Lions real depth.
South Africa are the only country to have knocked the All Blacks off their traditional perch atop the world rankings in the past decade and they do so via depth (the second most registered players in the world) and a high veldt rugby factory that churns out monster forwards with monotonous regularity.
Every other nation, including Australia, instead rely on serendipity if they are to make a run up the world rankings.
Ireland and Scotland are currently riding on the crest of one of those waves, with Scotland’s run all the more remarkable for the tiny number of players the nation has to pick from.
Australia is in a trough.
Yet that trough is not as deep as many critics make out, and I would argue it appears deeper than it truly is because Australia constantly tests itself against the best in the world.
The Wallabies have played 624 Tests.
The All Blacks have accounted for 163 of those games, and while an Aussie winning strike rate of 26% (43 wins) may appear at first flush to be nothing to be proud of it stacks up well against the northern hemisphere.
The Six Nations — England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy — have played the ABs 212 times. They have won just 23 of those Tests.
The only other nation Australia has played more than 50 times is South Africa (86 Tests). The Springboks boast the second best win rate in world rugby history and again Australia is the only nation not called New Zealand to run them close.
Don’t hate on the Wallabies. Cheer the plucky underdog.
Cheer the minnows who stand up to the best in the world game after game and cheer extra loud on those occasions David beats Goliath.
And know that the planets will align, the next golden generation will coalesce and the men in gold will climb back up the rankings beating the odds and maybe even the All Blacks.
Originally published as Why the Wallabies aren’t Wobblies, but rather plucky underdogs and overachievers
Tears, tries and a dad’s dream: The real Suaalii story
Rugby’s $5 million man, cross-code superstar Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has been big news since he was 14-years old, now Jamie Pandaram reveals the complex character behind the headlines.
Reds primed for Super season
The Reds don’t want to waste their good work on a successful pre-season tour of the United Kingdom when they kick-off their Super Rugby Pacific season later this month.