No-one loses less to the All Blacks than Australia

Is it in Australian rugby best interests to play the All Blacks as often as the Wallabies do?

Nic White and the Wallabies looks dejected after losing the Bledisloe Cup Picture: Getty Images

Is it in Australia’s interests to play the All Blacks as often as we do?

Serious question. No one plays New Zealand as often as Australia does. Trans-Tasman matches constitute the world record for matches between the same two countries, whether one accepts the Australian figure or the NZ one.

If it is the Australian figure, which includes those matches, played after the Great War, between NSW and the All Blacks, then the total is 193 (50 wins, 141 losses, eight draws). If it is the New Zealand tally, which ignores the Waratahs matches — though they were treated very much as Tests at the time — then it is 169 (44 wins, 117 losses, eight draws).

True, we are overdosing on All Blacks in this COVID-affected season. Only in 1962 has Australia met the All Blacks more often in one season, but the five Tests that year were spread over two countries and from May to September.

Watch every match of the 2020 Bledisloe Cup & Tri Nations Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly

So this year has been pretty much — here’s that word again — unprecedented. But is playing the All Blacks so many times in quick succession in our best interest? There is, I acknowledge, a significant financial impact of scaling back. But in terms of Australian rugby’s self image, is the game setting itself up to fail by playing them so regularly?

Spoiler alert: I actually believe we should play the All Blacks whenever we get the chance. So this is very much a devil’s advocate argument. Still, there are some compelling reasons for reducing the number of Bledisloe Tests.

Let me begin by saying that in the period beginning with a “2” — that is, from 2000 onwards — Australia has, percentage-wise, the best record in world rugby of not being beaten by the All Blacks. Just in case you missed that, I will repeat it. Australia has the best record of not losing to the All Blacks. (A win ratio would be cleaner, of course — and here the Springboks narrowly beat the Wallabies, 24 per cent to 22 per cent — but they entirely discount draws, which surely are relevant.)

Since 2000, the two countries have played 59 times. There have been 13 Wallabies wins and three draws. That’s 16 Tests where they haven’t been beaten, which equates to 27.11 per cent. The next best nation is the world champion, South Africa, with 45 games played for 11 wins, 37 losses and a draw. The percentage when the Boks weren’t beaten is 26.66.

A quick run through the records of all other Tier One nations against the All Blacks since 2000 makes for interesting reading: England (19 matches, four wins, 15 losses, 21.1 per cent), France (27 matches, three wins, 23 losses, one draw, 11.1 per cent), Ireland (18 matches, two wins, 16 losses, 11.1 per cent).

All the rest have not scored a single win: Argentina (20 matches), Wales (18), Scotland (10) and Italy (11).

Now, consider how rugby is travelling in all of those other countries. Certainly pre-COVID, the game was flying. Australia, by contrast, was wrapped in self-doubt and torturing itself, bemoaning the now-18 years since it surrendered the Bledisloe Cup. No matter that not a single side in world rugby would have reclaimed the trophy in that time.

Consider this as well: England was properly chuffed at reaching the World Cup final last year after beating the All Blacks 19-7 in Yokohama.

Yet that was the first time England had met New Zealand since 2014, aside from a Test in 2018. ­England went from World Cup to World Cup with only one meeting against the best rugby country in the world. In that period, Australia played New Zealand 17 times for three wins and a draw.

Consider, too, the disastrous impact of the All Blacks on the Wallabies’ world ranking, which so many critics use to denigrate Australian rugby. Since 2000, Australia has won 147 Tests out of 262, a win rate of 56.1 per cent.

Had they not played the All Blacks during this period, their win rate would have increased by 10 percentage points, to 66.

Let’s put that into perspective. In the entire history of professional rugby, there have been only 14 Test coaches out of 82 who have ever achieved a 66 per cent win rate.

We are talking of the immortals. Six of them are New Zealanders, with last year’s All Blacks coach Steve Hansen the most successful of all time at 86 per cent. Yet in the three seasons Hansen coached Wales, from 2002-04, his win rate was a lowly 35 per cent.

If Australia loses on Saturday (and everything so far in this column points to that result), Scotland will overtake it on the rankings, with the Wallabies falling back to seventh. Scotland’s win ratio overall since 2000, including its 10 winless games against the All Blacks, has been 42.6 per cent.

Take the All Blacks out of the equation, that percentage only increases to 44.6. And yet Scotland, which last played New Zealand in 2017, will move ahead of Australia, which plays them four times since October 11.

Wales temporarily took over the world No 1 ranking from NZ when it beat England in a World Cup warm-up match in August last year. At that moment in history, Wales had lost 16 of its most recent 18 Tests against Australia. And like Scotland, it had not met the All Blacks since 2017.

As I said, I believe Australia reaps great benefit from going out and trying to match it with the side that has almost totally dominated world rugby since the dawn of professionalism. The Boks and Argentina play them every year in The Rugby Championships, but only twice.

All the northern hemisphere nations are able to plot their one-off Tests against the All Blacks years in advance and then plan for little else. And yet out of the 105 Tests against New Zealand they have played since 2000, the entire Six Nations has won just nine.

I’m not suggesting Australia back away from the fight, far from it. But New Zealand is the Sparta of the modern rugby world, with the entire nation giving itself over to winning rugby wars.

Australia might have lost to them more than any other country but that’s only because we play them more than anyone else. Yet percentage-wise, no one has a better record. Keep that in mind.