Have the Wallabies got their mojo back? Why fans are pulling out the Johnny Howard tracksuit

In the week after Australia downed England at Twickenham, a call went out on social media for Rugby Australia to consider another run of the old-style Wallabies tracksuit, early 2000s vintage.

The green shellsuit was donned by many famous players but the most memorable occupant was then Prime Minister John Howard, who would put on his tracksuit to watch games in the middle of the night, and after the big wins, rock the kit on his morning power-walk.

One of Howard’s well-worn Wallabies tracksuits is even on display in the Howard Library in Old Parliament House.

Pulling out ‘the Johnny Howard tracksuit’ became an irreverent shorthand for Wallabies fans expressing their pride in the team, by wearing team kit following a win. But that practice had became less frequent in recent years and, at the end of 2023, essentially non-existent. Wallabies kit was buried at the back of cupboards.

A year later, however, the Wallabies went back north and, as massive outsiders, won in thrilling circumstances at Twickenham. And suddenly, after dark days, the world looked a whole lot different for Australian rugby fans.

“It’s a beautiful thing when you walk down the street, and people are wearing Wallaby jerseys and hats and things again,” Rugby Australia chair Daniel Herbert said.

John Howard on a walk in his Wallabies tracksuit in 2001.Credit: Mike Bowers

“Even at my local general store, kids walking out wearing Wallaby jerseys and seeing the hats when you walk the dog. I hadn’t seen that for a while.”

The Wallabies didn’t manage to achieve the grand slam, but the good vibes flowing out of the spring tour didn’t stop after the England win. A record win over Wales followed, and though a defeat to Scotland followed that, a narrow loss to world No.2 Ireland in the last game ended the year pointing to a competitive Wallabies side who, if not already revived, are well on their way. The world’s media declared Australia were back.

It was a reward for long-suffering supporters but the increased attention from re-engaged casual fans and media outlets, and a shift from derision back to national celebration, raised a question few would have thought crazy at the end of 2023: has Australian rugby got its mojo back?

“Obviously it’s the circles you mix in, but everywhere I went the mood completely changed,” Herbert said of the Wallabies tour.

The Wallabies celebrate with the Ella Mobbs Cup after their victory.Credit: Getty Images

“I think people had a sense they felt the direction was good and then that tour just reinforced it for a number of people.

“It got a lot of that latent supporter base ... who may have been disenfranchised or disillusioned, who all of a sudden have started to think there could be brighter days ahead.”

There are no victory laps being taken just yet, stresses Herbert, the former Wallabies centre who has been in the role of RA chair for just over a year.

Max Jorgensen scores the match-winner.Credit: Stan Sport

While he and RA chief executive Phil Waugh are keen to point to this only being the first year of a much longer-term plan to return Australian rugby to its former glory days, the country jumping back on board will have been welcome nonetheless, with the British and Irish Lions Tour next year.

In the fortnight after the England win, the spike in interest saw tickets for the three-Test series pushed even closer to being sold out. There are now no public allocation tickets left for first Test in Brisbane, and only “low 1000s” left for both the second Test at the MCG and the third in Sydney. Only a few hundred tickets are left for the Waratahs-Lions tour game, too.

The Waratahs are even revelling in the glow, reporting memberships up 10 per cent from the same time last year.

Much praise for the Wallabies’ revival has gone towards coach Joe Schmidt, and Herbert joins in lauding the Kiwi coach.

But the RA chair says Australian rugby regaining its feet has also been the outcome of a much broader reconstruction of personnel, programs and mindset in the code nationally, which has, for decades, shackled itself with an inability to work together, and with a pursuit of “sugar hit” fixes.

While Schmidt’s hiring was important, the recruitment of new high-performance boss Peter Horne before that was critical, Herbert says – and not just because Horne was tasked with building out a long-term vision for Australian rugby’s success.

As a former boss of Schmidt at World Rugby, Horne was probably the reason Schmidt even agreed to take the job.

New Rugby Australia high performance head Peter Horne.Credit: Steven Siewert

“Having someone like Peter on board was crucial in that because after what had happened to Dave Rennie, it’d be pretty hard for an international coach to look and think there’s a hell of a lot of job security there,” Herbert said.

“We needed Joe, and the market generally, to see that it wasn’t going to be like that moving forward, that we know that we require patience and it takes time – you don’t flick a switch with the position we’re in and all of a sudden you’ve got a world-beating team.”

Schmidt has proved to be a spotlight-grabbing figure, and his recruitment when the Wallabies were at one of their lowest ebbs provided hope for fans.

But Herbert said the approach of RA in their strategy for overdue change – which became inarguable after 2023 – was a long-term, nationally aligned plan that didn’t hang on the hope a new Wallabies coach will fix everything.

‘We feel we’ve got a God-given right to be at that top table, even though we stopped doing a number of things that made us successful in those times.’

RA chair Daniel Herbert

“The first thing we said we needed to do, we’ve always had a fixation on the coach and that if we change the coach – we tend to create demigods of coaches. We think everything will be driven off the back of, if we change a coach, then maybe we’re a chance,” Herbert said.

“Whereas the significance of hiring Peter Horne, and then [high-performance manager] Jaime Fernandez in the women’s game, was more about we’ve got to have a longer-term view than what a coach is going to do in the next 12 months or 18 months or two years.

“Even if a coach can turn it around, then what are you building underneath that to make sure it sustains itself?

“We’ve been caught as a game for quite a while in this cycle. We feel we’ve got a God-given right to be at that top table, even though we stopped doing a number of things that made us successful in those times.”

The strategy was to finally get all parties in Australian rugby realigned and rowing in the same direction, under the leadership of RA. But that has required the states to get on board, and Herbert says regaining the “trust” of state unions with long histories of enmity for head office.

“I think everyone acknowledged that we needed to change. It’s just then how that change then looked and sort of guiding people through and making sure that state bodies wouldn’t look at the national body as a competitor,” Herbert said.

“That can be tricky in a federated model, trying to get the support, because it’s just traditionally not the way things are done. So you’re trying to break down decades of the way things are done.

Daniel Herbert scoring in 2001 on the way to a Wallabies series win.Credit: Tim Clayton

“But if we want to actually emulate some of the really good unions that, even on a bad day, they’re still competitive and still winning Test matches – if we want to emulate that, then we’ve got to change what we’re doing.

“And Rugby Australia or ARU has not been a body that’s always been trusted. But we just had to put down the pitchforks.

“Because you would often, as a state body … and I’ve been in this position where you’d look and you’d go, well, I don’t know if I trust what you’re telling me to do. You’re asking me to trust you, but that takes time. And then the capability of your people – I sometimes questioned, do I have better people than what you’ve got? So we had to make sure we got really capable people that couldn’t be challenged that were above reproach. But then they also had to have the same style around being consultative, not dictatorial.”

Rugby Australia took ownership of the Waratahs and the Brumbies during the year, and Herbert says relations with Queensland and the Western Force are stronger than ever. After three summits with states and Super Rugby teams this year, a long-term national high-performance plan – that covers everything from pathways through to Super Rugby and national teams – is due to be released in coming weeks.

Joe Schmidt has made a big impact for the Wallabies.Credit: Getty Images

Green shoots are popping up all over the place. The Australian Schools and under-18s side thumped New Zealand in October, and streamlined state pathway competitions in the under-16s and -19s are now a few years in, and thriving. Horne indicated recently under-14s is a new area of focus.

The Australian women’s team finished the year with a much-needed win in the WXV2 and, boosted by some star sevens players, will be dark horses at the 2025 Rugby World Cup.

The good vibes and Wallabies kit floating around Australian streets are well-timed for RA, too, as they look to finalise a new broadcast rights deal. They’re currently in an exclusive negotiating period with current broadcaster Nine Entertainment (publishers of this masthead) but that ends on December 31.

Herbert said they would be keen for the “certainty” of renewing but only “if the price is right”. The current deal is worth $30m a year.

“Nine have been a great partner and we have a great relationship, but they got us a number of years ago at the lowest ebb,” he said.

“We’ve made, particularly the last 12 months, considerable progress. It’s going to be a very different looking rugby landscape over the next five years than what has been the last five.”

Herbert isn’t one to make brash predictions about the Wallabies’ chances of beating the Lions, or even winning the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia. He refers back to patience in the process, with the ultimate goal of ensuring the Wallabies can not only get back to the top, but stay there.

“Change takes time. If you look at Ireland at the moment, around 2012-2013, they’d never beaten New Zealand in their history,” he said.

“It took until about 2017 before they beat New Zealand – and then it became a bit of a habit. And now they’re consistently in the top three.”

But Herbert also pointed the potential for faster returns, referencing South African rugby restructuring after a poor 2016 season and initially steering towards winning the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

“I don’t think they thought they were a chance of winning [in 2019] but once you get the momentum, then it’s like the snowball going down the hill. So turning that corner can be hard, but once you turn, you can achieve a lot more in three years than what you think is possible at the start.

“People overestimate what you can achieve in one year and underestimate what you can achieve in three.”

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