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The World Rugby ranking for the end of 2014 show the All Blacks at number one, followed by the Springboks, Ireland, England, the Wallabies, Wales and France.
The All Blacks lost a Test, against the Springboks in South Africa, and drew against the Wallabies in Sydney, but showed with their other victories that their favouritism for a back-to-back Rugby World triumph is grounded in rugby reality.
Here is the New York Times‘ analysis of the Wallabies in 2014.
The Wallabies will be glad to see the end of 2014. A turbulent year on and off the field has resulted in them slipping to fifth in the rankings following their worst tour of Europe since 2005.
“The new coach, Michael Cheika, went 1-3 in Tests, with a victory against Wales and losses to France, Ireland and England … If the scrum isn’t fixed, they can kiss their World Cup chances goodbye.
In 2014, the Wallabies were strong in Australia, with a draw against the All Blacks being an outstanding result to go with a hard-fought victory over the Springboks.
But out of Australia, the Wallabies were woeful. They were thrashed in New Zealand by the All Blacks and beaten by the Springboks and the Pumas (their first Rugby Championship win) in South Africa and Argentina.
The only win out of Australia was against Wales, a side below them in the World Rugby rankings.
The worst aspect of the Wallabies in 2014 was the return of the dreaded scrum disease on their European tour. The scrum was continually splintered, with the binding techniques of the second rowers being obviously wrong. There is a large gap between the locks on almost every engagement.
The angle of shove from the flankers, too, was invariably wrong.
The mystery of Australian rugby is that since Rod Macqueen’s tenure as the most successful Wallabies coach ever the scrum has been a persistent point of weakness for the side. Why has there been no significant improvement for over a decade?
Successive Wallabies coaches and all the Super Rugby coaches in this time deserve to be criticised for the perennial occurrence of the Wallaby scrum disease.
And here are further distressing statistics (courtesy of the rugby statistician Matthew F Alvarez).
Four of the five most capped props ever (Al Baxter is the odd prop out) played for the Wallabies in 2014. This year was a losing season. So was 2013. This is the first instance of back-to-back losing seasons since 1973-74.
The Wallabies have had three coaches in the last three years. Is the problem one of coaching or a lack of playing cattle? The Wallabies finished 2014 losing six Tests from their last seven, the worst run of losses since 2009.
Is there some hope among these gloomy statistics? Five of the six losses were away Tests and only one was lost by 10 points or more and, as Matthew Alvarez reminds me, “we led that Test with 10 minutes to go in that one, too!”
I would rate the Wallabies season with a four out of 10 result. As far as the ARU is concerned, I would give them a two out of 10 rating.
The ARU has failed to provide leadership for Australian rugby, on and off the field. It has allowed a collapse of its governance standards with secrecy, lack of accountability and conflict of interest problems prevailing over acceptable behaviour.
I believe that there is some relationship between the governance of the game and the play of the national side. The link is not hard and fast. But in the case of the Wallabies in 2014, the slack, inert leadership of the ARU had an effect on the performance of the Wallabies.
In 2015 the ARU must lift its game. The game is being poorly administrated at the national level.
The public needs to know what the strategy is for getting rugby out of its current difficulties. What is the truth about the ARU’s finances? What is the truth about the coming television deal? A convincing explanation of the advantages of 2016 Super Rugby format needs to be made.
Hawker must be more assertive in ensuring Australian rugby and the Wallabies, particularly, get a decent hearing from the World Rugby officials involved with Rugby World Cup 2015.
In other words, the ARU needs to show some leadership, intellectually regarding the laws and politically in World Rugby matters, in Australia and in the international forums of the game. In the past, especially under John O’Neill as CEO, the ARU has forced through progressive changes to the advantage laws and the promotion and, indeed, the creation of the ELVs.
O’Neill, also, was a progressive force at the then IRB forming an alliance with France, New Zealand and South Africa to blunt the negative impact of the celtic chums (Ireland, Wales and Scotland) and the old farts (England), which held back the worldwide spread of the game.
With the influence of the ‘Home Unions’ diminished there has been the introduction of rugby (for the second time but in the Sevens format) into the Olympic Games. The French influence here was crucial. Women’s rugby is catching fire around the world, especially in the United States. World Rugby is spending huge amounts of money pioneering the game in parts of South America, Asia and Africa.
The British-centric imperative of rugby has been changed into more of worldwide vision.
Next year has to be a year where rugby in Australia restores its credibility, at home and abroad. The game has had rough patches in the past. In 1997 the Wallabies were thrashed by the Springboks, conceding more than 40 points in second.
A new coach, Rod Macqueen, and 13 of the players who were bashed by the Springboks, won the 1999 Rugby World Cup tournament easily, conceding only one try in all the matches.
The All Blacks have brought back Wayne Smith as their talisman for their Rugby World Cup 2015 campaign. I reckon that a similar resurrection of Rod Macqueen in the talisman role for the Wallabies (much like that of Bob Templeton in the 1991 Rugby World Cup) would be a great way for the Wallabies to begin their 2015 campaign with a positive charge
All the best for a happy new year to all Roarers