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The ARU has given itself some breathing space to deal with a post-Rugby World Cup apocalypse by finally granting senior players the privilege of representing the Wallabies while playing overseas.
It’s welcome news in a World Cup year of course, because it increases the depth of the experienced player pool available to the Wallabies. In particular, the 100 Test fairytale becomes a tantalising possibility for Matt Giteau.
It also goes some way to stemming the bleeding from the player exodus taking place after the showpiece.
However, in practice it won’t have a huge effect, because the onerous criteria that players have to meet to qualify means that most will go overseas early anyway.
According to the ARU, “Effective immediately, overseas-based players will now be eligible for Qantas Wallabies selection if they have played more than 60 Tests for Australia and have held a professional contract with Australian Rugby for at least seven years.”
At the moment that list is pretty sparse, with only George Smith (111 caps), Drew Mitchell (61 caps) and Matt Giteau (92 caps) eligible from the overseas ranks.
Others who would, or will, be eligible from overseas include Adam Ashley-Cooper (104), Stephen Moore (92), Ben Alexander (72), Benn Robinson (72) and James Slipper (63).
Several others from the current crop may qualify depending on how many Tests they play between now and the end of the World Cup – James Horwill (58), Sekope Kepu (52), Will Genia (58), Quade Cooper (53) and Wycliffe Palu (54).
Out of that list only Giteau, Kepu, Genia, Ashley-Cooper and Palu look to be real chances to make the World Cup squad anyway. Smith would appear to be too long out of Test rugby, Horwill is badly out of form and Cooper may well lose his race with injury.
Alexander is an unlikely selection given the power-scrum tactics likely to take centre stage in England. Robinson could actually benefit from that same scenario, but has been out of favour for a while.
In any case, this list shows the problem with the criteria when it hits the reality of the professional rugby pyramid.
At the base, there are a huge number of hopefuls entering Super Rugby, most of whom will either only last one contract and who will never represent the Wallabies. At the next tier, there are the established Super Rugby players who may last two contracts, say five or six years, but also never represent Australia. The third tier is those players who finally achieve some Test rugby, and at the peak are the very, very few elite Wallabies who manage to play a significant number of Tests.
60 Test matches is an enormous number. To get to 60 Tests, a player would conservatively have to play five full seasons of Test rugby, maintaining dominant form and with almost nil rotation or injury.
Add to this that most players won’t play Super Rugby until they’re at least 20, and most won’t play their first Test rugby for two years after that, and this puts even the fittest, most fortunate prodigies at 27 years old before they could take advantage of the ARU criteria.
The “seven years contracted” condition doesn’t necessarily make it harder, but it doesn’t make it any easier either – if a player is late getting contracted then he could easily be 28 or 29 by the time he is able to take off overseas and still remain eligible for the Wallabies.
By this time there is the obvious question of desire and performance after the age of 30. Unless we’re talking a Brad Thorn, a Brian O’Driscoll or a Keven Mealamu, then a lot of players suffer an inevitable physical decline at that age, none of which is helped by extensive travel.
Add in a family and the priority changes that go with that, and there are a raft of reasons why many players who meet the criteria may choose not to return anyway, or may not be playing at a level sufficient to warrant their selection.
But the ARU knows all that. Sure, they’re interested in keeping the long-term elite players in the Australian landscape. But they also know that because there are so few of them, it means that they will have a minimal effect on the average in-season Test match.
The bigger prize is keeping the mid-level Wallabies for longer.
This is the pain point in Wallaby-land. It’s not the Genias and Ashley-Coopers heading overseas that hurts. It’s the loss of the fresh princes, like Kane Douglas, that really rips the heart out of the national team.
Without the two-to-three-season Wallabies on deck, the team becomes a mix of a few predictable veterans, mixed with a swag of precocious, and easily startled, young bucks. What Australian rugby really needs is to hold into the middle of the bell curve.
The ARU move is the right one, but it hasn’t gone far enough to really give the newly minted stars something to shoot for. At 25 or 26 years of age, coming off a second Super Rugby contract, with 30 Wallaby caps under their belt, how many players will ignore the European millions and back themselves to win a further 30 caps, just so they can add to the Wallaby tally from overseas? Not many. 60 Tests is too many for the majority and the ones that have gone previously will still go under the new regulations.
If the number was, say, 40 Tests then almost all would hang around. Then not only are they kept in Australia for 40 Test matches, which is significant, they remain available for Wallaby selection in their ‘second prime’, and they probably play their 60 Tests anyway.
But when the number is 60, the chances of them playing 80 are pretty slim. There’s a reason most players don’t make it to 80-plus Tests and that is because it is incredibly hard.
To put it in perspective, even the great Tim Horan didn’t get past 80 Tests. Jason Little played 75. David Wilson 79. It doesn’t get any easier to saddle up for the Wallabies when you’re already under the load of a 40-game European season.
At a 60 Test requirement, lots of players will go overseas before they hit that mark anyway. The ones that don’t are too few in number to make a significant difference, and are unlikely to remain in top Wallaby form through years eight to ten of their professional careers. Some will manage it, but they’ll be the exceptions, so the net effect on the Wallabies depth is negligible.
At a 40 Test requirement fewer players are lost, because after one contract cycle they only have to play another 10 or 15 Tests to hit the 40 mark. That can happen in a year and they might sign for two years to get the milestone. If they’re then lost to Australian rugby, they’re still eligible for the Wallabies in the prime of their playing life, around years six to eight of their pro career.
It’s a great initiative and the ARU should be applauded for taking positive steps to keep overseas Wallabies in the frame. The next step is to make the numbers realistic enough to do what they should be doing – keeping players at their peak in Australia.
ROAR POLL – WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE ARU’S MOVE?