The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Wallaby depth the best it's ever been

23rd June, 2015
Advertisement
Quade Cooper is set for his Australian rugby sevens debut in Las Vegas. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Roar Guru
23rd June, 2015
236
3631 Reads

Australian rugby has more depth than ever before, which not only provides for a strong chance of winning some silverware in the immediate future, it is also allowing us to prepare our next crop of superstar players for the future.

This depth is protecting our young players from too much exposure before they are ready and allowing them time to develop both as rugby players and as young men away from the prying eyes of media and the rugby public.

It’s a spiral of perpetual excellence when compared to the misleading depth of young talent in Australian rugby circa 2011.

With the quality 22 players already named in the Wallaby train-on squad from our weakest Super rugby sides, combined with the fact that both the Brumbies and the Waratahs could conceivably provide 15 players each to this squad, we are looking at a very healthy and mature talent pool.

For the first time in Wallaby history we could field three Test-standard XVs capable of doing well at the elite level. While this does not equate to us being the best in the world – there are other countries also capable of doing this – this kind of depth leading into a World Cup is a first.

With the five Super Rugby sides this is perfectly natural and reason to declare expansion a success, when many doubted it as even feasible. With any luck the expansion to five sides and the ensuing depth it has created will provide us with the World Cup we so desire.

It should be noted the expansion to five teams may have done exactly what the formation of the Brumbies did in the late 1990s. The Brumbies provided opportunity for fringe players who would have otherwise been lost to Australian rugby. The likes of Owen Finegan and co. were not only able to stay in professional rugby but also to develop as just as good if not as better players than their previous superiors. This depth led to a World Cup in 1999 and the Wallabies’ greatest era of success.

Unfortunately the rest of the world got better and so we needed to expand further to create depth.

Advertisement

It is worth noting just how few teenagers there are running around in Australian Super Rugby franchises in 2015. Compare this with the four years prior, when the ‘Amigo generation’ was let loose at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. In this period we saw a plethora of very young talent proverbially setting the world on fire, both on and sadly off the field.

On the surface this lack of young talent on show in 2015 could be viewed as a concern, but the fact is the next generation of talented teenagers are being kept safe from the rigours of top-class rugby. They are in the academy set ups and in the club rugby systems where they belong both physically and emotionally.

Sure there are exceptions, such as Sean McMahon, but generally speaking we are not seeing the very young players coming through as we once did.

While we may not be seeing them on the Super Rugby field, there is just as much talent coming through. What has changed is that with the five Super Rugby sides we’ve been able to develop more players along the way and keep them in the system. This has increased the average age of each side but also our depth of quality both on and hopefully off the field. This keeps us from needing teenagers to pick up the slack and fill the gaps before they are truly ready.

Players like Bernard Foley and Matt Toomua would’ve probably been spat out in previous generations because they took a bit longer to come good. They’d have been lost to the Wallaby set up.

Not only does the five franchises spread the talent and provide opportunities for players not as initially gifted as the likes of the ‘three Amigos’, it actually gives them an opportunity to become better than them in the long run. This is why players like Toomua and Foley are likely to start in the next Wallaby XV ahead of Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale. Once upon a time men like Toomua and Foley would have most likely have been pouring the beers in the stadium bar.

This mature depth in turn protects the need to blood our talented teenagers who are nowhere near emotionally ready to deal with the money and fame. This keeps the lucrative contracts in the hands of mature young men capable of handling a bit of stardom.

Advertisement

I feel for Quade, Kurtley and James O’Conor. Had there been a bit more mature depth in Australian rugby when they came through they’d probably have played half as many Test matches by now but they’d be much better players, probably with pristine reputations. Sadly, our lack of depth 10 years into professionalism cost them. Their likely massive future French club contracts might be compensation enough.

Which brings me to my last point. The only thing that can deflate the mature depth we now have in Australian rugby, considering we now also have the NRC to further keep this spiral of perpetual excellence producing the goods, is the player drain to Europe. We may need to reassess the eligibility laws further down the track.

In the meantime we have good reason to be excited by the prospects of rugby in Australia.

close