Wallabies win over the All Blacks can kickstart Australian rugby rebuild
The mighty All Blacks have proved unconquerable to the Wallabies for more than two decades, owning the Bledisloe Cup since 2003. Coming off its worst-ever defeat, Australia must regain its dignity against the greatest of opponents.
The last time Australia secured the Bledisloe Cup, the names Matt Burke, Steve Larkham, George Gregan and George Smith were inked in the matchday program.
The year was 2002, the US had just invaded Afghanistan and Steve Jobs was still five years away from launching the iPhone. This weekend’s Wallabies Test reserve Tom Lynagh wasn’t even born. It’s been a while.
Lining up against the Wallabies that day – when Australia won 16-14 – was Scott Robertson. He’s now coach of the All Blacks side running on to Accor Stadium today in search of their 22nd Bledisloe Cup series triumph in a row.
Such has been the one-sided nature of this two-horse race that of the 57 Bledisloe Cup clashes over the past 21 years, Australia has won just nine games.
And seemingly the Australian public – raised on a gold-scarfed John Williamson belting out Waltzing Matilda around packed stadiums and Buddha Handy on our screens urging on the green and gold with “Go, you good thing” – couldn’t care less. The game is broken on and off the field.
Top-level rugby in Australia has been on a slippery slope over the past decade, with the national team hitting another low after their devastating 67-27 loss to Argentina – soccer-mad Argentina! – two weeks ago in Santa Fe. Dyed-in-the-wool supporters who once would have been outraged by that result just shook their heads in despair.
But all is not lost and the game they say is played in heaven – we would settle for the main sporting channels – is at a crossroads. And to rub salt into the wounds in the face of the continuing New Zealand onslaught, a canny Kiwi coach, with savvy skills honed in Ireland and across the Tasman, is at the controls of our rugby future.
Joe Schmidt has the Wallabies on a mission to end the painful Bledisloe drought and win back disillusioned fans – starting today.
While New Zealand would normally be considered vulnerable this weekend after losing three of their past four Tests, the Wallabies head into the battle as clear underdogs. However, and pardon the cliche, the only way from here is up.
“In all reality we are at the bottom of the mountain and we’ve got a huge task ahead of us,” said legendary Wallaby backrower of the 1980s and 1990s Simon Poidevin, one of the fiercest competitors to have pulled on the jumper.
“We were blessed to go through an era when rugby was in the headlines for the right reasons and there was an absolute loyalty from supporters. You want to see that happen again and you don’t want to see the game become a second-rate sport in the country.
“We have to start winning to reverse that and we’ve got to go back to what to what Australian rugby was always good at and was respected for globally – we were the smartest team out there, we’ve got to become smarter.”
Looking at today’s first Bledisloe clash, Poidevin said: “I think we will go OK for the first 40 or 50 minutes, then the reality is we just don’t have the depth of the All Blacks or the Springboks. We’ve got to fill that void because we just haven’t got the ability to bring players on who can continue to change the game.”
Australia’s talent pool has become a big issue, and 1991 World Cup-winning coach Bob Dwyer believes there should be no restriction on the number of foreign-based players selected for the Wallabies.
“The claim was if we do that, no players will stay here,” Dwyer said. “I’d say none of them stay here to play international rugby, the only reason they haven’t gone is because they haven’t had a decent contract offered to them.
“I think if an Australian player playing overseas is chosen to play for Australia and he declines the invitation, he has to stand down from his club game, that’s it. If international rugby counts that’s a rule we can make.”
The idea of having all offshore players eligible for Wallaby selection was supported by “The Voice of Rugby” Gordon Bray, who has called close to 300 Wallabies Tests, and 400 internationals all up, through his broadcasting career.
“We just don’t have the depth,” he said. “South Africa probably has six players in every position, and we are struggling in a lot of key positions. If the frontline players get injured, we get exposed.
“So that’s where the pain comes and that’s where we’ve really got to amass all of our forces to make sure we can improve that depth.”
Dwyer coached in a golden age for the code in Australia, guiding his Wallabies – which included Poidevin – to the 1991 World Cup on the hallowed rugby ground of Twickenham. Even better, Australia beat England in the final and they were presented with the Webb Ellis Cup by the Queen.
Schmidt has an impressive coaching record, but Dwyer says there’s nothing better than home grown.
“The best thing we could do is get an Australian coach,” he said.
“Australians know about other Australians, they know what makes them tick. They know how to address them, how to encourage them, berate them, whereas I am not too sure whether anyone else does.”
Bray believes a lot of the Wallabies’ woes can be traced back to the aftermath of the 2003 World Cup held in Australia.
“I think probably from an administration point of view we dropped the ball,” he said. “There was a pot of gold after that World Cup but it wasn’t spent wisely, it wasn’t invested wisely.
“A good contrast would be the Sydney 2000 Olympics when the AOC had a similar pot of gold which they turned into a real treasure chest to the point where they don’t rely on government financing to send our Olympic teams away.”
That lack of finance has been a real stumbling block for Australian rugby, Bray says. “It meant we haven’t had the engagement with the grassroots and the development pathways,” he said.
He recalled in the early 2000s a group of high school teachers got together to stage high school rugby competitions in western Sydney and the Blue Mountains but were told by NSW Rugby there was no money in the coffers to help.
Then Penrith Panthers boss Phil Gould, one of sport’s shrewdest administrators, gave the teachers the money they were seeking. Overnight, the Mark Geyer Cup for junior rugby league in the Sydney’s west was born.
“There was a missed opportunity,” Bray said.
To regain its former strong position, the game needs to focus on the growth areas outside the GPS schools, Bray says.
“But that needs money, that needs development officers and they are very thin on the ground,” he said.
Poidevin has “guarded optimism” about what lies ahead for the code in Australia with next year’s British Lions tour and Australia hosting the 2027 World Cup.
“They are two platforms that will drive the game forward, but you’ve got to make sure when you are doing that you backfill and provide a future which is bulletproof,” he said.
“I’m optimistic because we’ve got these big events coming.
“I’m pessimistic because World Rugby and the rule makers across the globe just have to move on and make the game more dynamic and bring supporters back to watch the David Campeses of this world.
“He became a global superstar of the game, and it wasn’t because he was a big crunching forward who ran over the top of people. We want to give Max Jorgensen and players of that ilk the opportunity to show their wares.
“The way the game has become such a massive compact sport and arm wrestle, that’s not what people want to see.
“To be honest the people running the game have a responsibility, and they are ignoring that responsibility now because they are ignoring what is obvious to everyone – the game has to change.
“And if they can’t take on that responsibility then leave, get out of the game and bring in change.”
Poidevin said a key component to the game’s revival was for Australian teams to start winning at Super Rugby level. “And I think we will make a quantum leap next year in the performance of our teams going back to four,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily great for the future of the game to be shrinking but it was necessary to strengthen Queensland, NSW, the Brumbies and Force to compete ferociously every week with New Zealand and Pacific teams.
“You need to have that ability for players to understand they are as good as the New Zealand players, they just have to get themselves on the same level of expertise.”
Bray said while the Wallabies’ position was frustrating, Schmidt is a world-class coach and has really good staff around him.
“We just have to accept there will be some pain along the way as we rebuild and try to re-engage with all those disenchanted followers who really want to see the Wallabies back at the top of the tree,” he said. “That is the challenge now for (CEO) Phil Waugh and the board of Rugby Australia.”
Poidevin is seeing green shoots at the grassroots levels of the game.
“I think that finally the penny has dropped for Rugby Australia that the Shute Shield and Hospital Cup club competitions have really deep talent that can come through into Super Rugby into the Wallabies,” Poidevin said. “That is one part of the game which is thriving.
“And why is it thriving? ‘A’ because it is tribal and ‘B’ because it provides a style of game that people want to go and watch.”
This season’s Shute Shield finals series has been some of the most entertaining and exciting rugby anywhere this season.
And Dwyer pointed out there have been other periods when Australia could not win a Test match.
“In international sport nothing is forever, that’s an absolute certainty,” he said.
“We’ve been here before and we fought our way out of it to win two World Cups and we can do it again. Full stop. Now let’s go and do it.”
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