Rugby’s dance of the desperates

When Australia ventures nervously across the floor and asks the Kiwis for this waltz, what else are they going to say? Sure, why not? There’s no one else.

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie is still in Scotland and faces a two-week quarantine when he gets to Australia. Picture: Robert Perry

Spare a thought for the man who until now has been on the outside of Australian rugby’s not-so-virtuous circle but who, in less than six weeks’ time, will bear the load for everyone. Dave Rennie.

The Wallabies coach-in-waiting still resides in Glasgow. It’s curious that he remains in Scotland, given that there has been no sign of the Pro14 competition starting up any time soon and he is contracted to be in Australia by early July. As it is, he may have to make his way to Sydney via his native New Zealand, like Waratahs coach Rob Penney, with a two-week isolation awaiting him when he arrives.

Still, COVID-19 or not, this has always been a frustrating and stressful time for the Wallabies coaches, when they have no direct access to their players and must wait for the Super Rugby season to play out. So, Glasgow or Sydney, it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.

Ten weeks and then a final. That’s what I am guessing Super Rugby Lite will come down to. July 4 start, September 12 finish. Then, presumably, straight into the internationals.

Normally, Australia will be playing an easier series of Tests before they take on the All Blacks. That’s a blanket statement, I realise, but it’s true. Whoever the Wallabies play, with the possible exception of the British and Irish Lions — and they won’t land here until 2025 unless someone acts on Alan Jones’s extremely sensible suggestion that we swap their tour of a still-COVID affected South Africa scheduled for 2021 — would as easier opponents than New Zealand.

But not this year. This year we’re stuck with them and they are stuck with us. The dance of the desperates. Everyone else will still be locked in tightly behind their international borders, so when Australia ventures nervously across the floor and asks the Kiwis for this waltz, what else are they going to say? Sure, why not? There’s no one else.

The New Zealanders always enter into a Bledisloe Cup series full of confidence. Why wouldn’t they, with a record of winning 37 of the 48 trans-Tasman Tests since they took the Cup on August 16, 2003. During that time, there have been just nine Wallabies wins and two draws, so basically Australia wins one in five. So naturally, the Wallabies will ever be so sporting about it and give the All Blacks a head start. The Kiwis will resume their “Super Rugby” competition on June 13, fully three weeks ahead of Australia.

Under what passes for “normal conditions”, Rennie would have been looking forward to the series with cautious confidence. Until the coronavirus struck, Australian teams were two from seven against Kiwi opponents. But three of those losses were by the Waratahs who, judging by the shadow teams being picked by the Australian selectors this year, are unlikely to figure much at all in the Wallabies.

If they are removed from the equation, Australia’s record becomes two from four and let’s not forget that the Brumbies were 10 seconds away from beating the Highlanders in Canberra and the Reds actually outscored the Crusaders four tries to three in losing 24-20 in Christchurch. OK, that’s clutching at straws, maybe, but it sure beats 40 straight losses.

OK, I’m getting a little uncomfortable with all this optimism. Time for a reality check …

This should have been the dawn of a bright new era under Rennie, but now we have to factor in the impact of the three Queensland Reds players who claim Rugby Australia and the QRU have given them grounds to walk away. Whatever else you can say about the goings-on in Australian rugby politics over the past month, it has done wonders for everyone’s vocabulary. First, there was “un-resign”. And now “repudiatory conduct”.

World Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit of the Springboks has withdrawn his request to have his contract terminated and will be remaining with the Stormers, so perhaps anything is possible. Still, one can’t help wondering whether we have just about reached the end game with this whole sorry episode. It may all end up in court. It may end up with all three players going abroad. But one thing is pretty clear. It will all end in tears, either now or some time in the future.

This is the rugby version of Sandpapergate. Not in the fine details or the scale, to be sure. But the same myths and accepted traditions that we had grown up with and accepted…..suddenly, as with the events at Newlands in 2018, we discovered that we were kidding ourselves. This was the awakening. It’s every man for himself. Rugby has become no different to any other enterprise.

So, chastened, let’s move on to determine what manner of mess Rennie now has to clean up. For starters, his plans for his pack are pretty much in tatters. Without Izack Rodda and Harry Hockings, the Wallabies coach will probably have to return Lukhan Salakai-Loto to his original Test position, lock, rather than play him at blindside flanker. Rob Simmons, who looked to have made his farewell to Test football at last year’s World Cup could be given an extension, while newcomers such as Brumbies pair Nick Frost and Darcy Swain and the Reds’ Angus Blyth could now be fast-tracked. And then there are players whose Wallabies careers barely got started or perhaps never did, second-rowers like the Rebels’ Matt Philip or Cadeyrn Neville.

Those constantly pushing for the abolition of the GIteau Law might well see this as pretext for bringing it down. Of all the players who quit Australian rugby at the end of the World Cup without reaching the 60-Test marker, there is little doubt that the former Brumbies lineout ace Rory Arnold is the one most missed. Certainly it would be a travesty if his international career faltered at 26 Tests.

As for Isaac Lucas, he probably can be covered without major disruption. Tom Banks looks to have the fullback spot covered, or if not him Dane Haylett-Petty. And veterans James O’Connor and Matt Toomua were probably always destined to fight it out for the No 10 jersey this year. No, we will begin to miss Lucas a little down the track.

If Steve Smith and David Warner and Cameron Bancroft can be accepted back into the fold after ball-tampering, there is no question that Rodda, Hockings and Lucas can also make their way back in Australian rugby, should they so choose.

But we’ve all been left a little wiser, a little deflated. None more so than Dave Rennie.