Wallabies need to go west for talent ... or face extinction

Rugby league is scooping up the talented kids and leaving Rugby eating their dust, writes Peter Jenkins.

The West Indies were once the benchmark for Test cricket. Gold chains swinging, the swag in the step, but most importantly boasting bagsful of talent, they intimidated opposition teams all the while thrilling fans around the globe.

From the late 1970’s until 1995, Australia could not win a Test series against them, home or away. The Calypso kings were unstoppable. And then they lost their way.

Pathway players were lured to other sports or in more recent times to shorter forms of the game, where the dollars and coloured clothing of the T20 circuit are preferred to pulling on whites.

The West Indies were once the benchmark for Test cricket.

Once the aspirational pursuit for Caribbean youth, Test cricket has seen that once lofty status consigned to history.

A sad decline never more stark than when the Aussies skittled them for 27 last week in the second innings of the final Test in Jamaica to put an exclamation mark on a three-zip series win.

Maro Itoje, of the British & Irish Lions charges upfield during the first test match of the series between Australia Wallabies and British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

A few days later that number 27 came back to haunt another international sporting team.

The Wallabies, beaten 27-19 by the British & Irish Lions in Brisbane on Saturday night, once ruled the Rugby world like the Windies did cricket. Albeit not for as long.

But they were silverware collectors par excellence back in the early 2000s when Australia held all the game’s biggest trophies – the World Cup, the Bledisloe Cup, the Tri Nations trophy and the Tom Richards Cup for besting the Lions.

Queen Elizabeth II hands William Webb Ellis trophy to Wallabies captain John Eales after Australia defeated France in 1999 World Cup final at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales

Until they too lost their way. The Wallabies have not won a World Cup since 1999. They last beat the Lions in their ‘every 12 years’ series in 2001. They have not lifted the Bledisloe Cup since 2002. They last won The Rugby Championship (formerly the Tri Nations Series) in 2015.

The Wallabies are now the Windies of Rugby. But where did it all go wrong?

Certainly a refusal to fish in the country’s biggest and most impactful talent pool helps explain the demise.

In the NRL, Penrith has won four successive premierships. It is no coincidence that most of the Panthers are not only homegrown stars but a high percentage of them boast a Pacific Islander background.

Census data shows the Pasifika community in Australia reached 415,000 in 2021 – up from 279,000 in 2011.

Tellingly, there were more Pacific Islanders in Blacktown alone than in ACT, South Australia, Tasmania and Northern Territory combined.

But what does Rugby Australia offer this Western Sydney demographic where explosive athletes abound? Doughnuts.

The Panthers players celebrate victory as the hold up the premiership trophy after the 2023 NRL Grand Final. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

No Super Rugby team based in the west, no matches from the current Lions tour being played at Parramatta’s CommBank Stadium, and no World Cup games scheduled there in 2027.

Rugby league are scooping up the talented kids and leaving Rugby eating their dust.

Rugby’s myopic focus on the traditional private schools system was also underscored at the recent national schoolboys’ championship.

How many boys from the Combined High Schools set-up were among the 46 players chosen for the NSW I and NSW II teams?

Three, and they were all in the NSW II team.

One from Endeavour Sports High, one from The Hills Sports High and one from Parkes High School.

Is it any wonder Rugby is losing the race for mainstream support, eyeballs and talent?

To think there were 4.8 million people tuned in to the State of Origin rugby league decider this year and just 860,000 watching the first Wallabies-Lions Test on Channel Nine and 9Now (no figures were available for Stan).

Another loss to the Lions in Melbourne this weekend and the crisis will only deepen.