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For Australian rugby fans, a win over England this weekend would be less like the beginning of a cure for their ills – and more like a loved one briefly waking from a coma before saying goodbye.
To all but the most deluded and insular of rugby people, Australian rugby is in intensive care.
It took New Zealand-based rugby journalist Mark Reason to slap us into accepting the harsh reality.
Said Reason, “In Paris at the weekend Australia played with wretched cowardice”, and the blunt-instrument-jolt from one of our opponents was like a truth serum. The confusion we felt was stripped away and there was a painful moment of clarity.
The most common response I had from rugby people who had read Reason’s thoughts was “I’m sad because it’s true.” That was alarming, because of all the spectrum of emotions, sadness is one of the most resigned.
A sad people are a beaten people, and Australian rugby fans are perilously close to giving up. Not because they don’t love rugby any more, but because it is clear that Australian rugby just doesn’t love them.
Should Australian rugby people walk away from the game entirely, it would be impossible to blame them.
They have swallowed several bitter pills in recent times, but the sledgehammer between the eyes is the realisation that the Wallabies don’t actually represent them in any meaningful way at all, and that their impassioned cries for change are no more than background static to the kingmakers.
Spiritually, the Wallabies play is so foreign to their supporters that they might as well be from another planet. Never has a Wallaby team been so devoid of daring and ambition, and full of fear and confusion. Few would remember a Wallaby team in such a funk.
But the awful truth which has hit home to the Australian rugby public is that they can talk about it all they like. Their voices just don’t matter.
All of the forum posts, bar chat and letters to the editor simply highlight the fact that rugby in Australia gives no voice to its supporters, and is not listening.
The stark reality is on show. As an Australian rugby supporter, your ability to influence decision making in Australian rugby is zero. There is no avenue to run for office. There is no way to apply for consideration for a directorship.
There is virtually no way for a rugby person to access the equivalent of their “local member” to push for reform or ask for funding. The decision making machinery exists behind a wall and the supporters are outside.
The situation is dire, but there is cause for hope. The fact is that the rugby community doesn’t need the establishment.
Aside from a moderate injury insurance policy for injured players, the average rugby player in Australia receives zero benefit from the ARU. There is almost no financial investment in the grassroots.
Coaching programs are essentially user-pays. Clubs survive on their own subs and sponsors. Development is regularly lamented as being insufficient. The ARU is as irrelevant to grassroots people, as they appear to be to it.
The advent of professionalism has driven player salaries and professional franchises to a new level of financial operation, but has not benefited amateur rugby. The amount of money available to the ARU to distribute to the state unions and clubs is paltry by professional sporting standards.
The ARU has also proven itself to be a haven for exclusivity. Far from being the guardians of the Australian rugby tradition, they have accommodated those who have compromised it the most.
Can anyone imagine a true Wallaby missing the team announcement for the World Cup and still appearing at the tournament? A true Wallaby urinating in the street drunk or assaulting a bouncer?
Man-children, narcissists and navel gazers thrive in the Wallaby setup, to the detriment of their more honest, conscientious teammates, and in spite of the contempt of their supporter base.
I have said “Australian rugby tradition” rather than “Wallaby tradition”. This is deliberate. Despite the Ptolemaic view from many players and administrators that the Wallabies are the centre of the universe, the reality is that the rugby public is the wellspring of rugby life.
If rugby supporters stop caring, the Wallabies are dead in the water. The Wallaby jersey only holds the mystique it does because the public love and revere it. Once they stop caring, it’s just a shoeshine rag.
Despite the power the supporters hold, they remain disorganised and emotionally bereft, waiting for their leaders to hear them and listen.
It’s time for supporters to realise that Australian grassroots rugby isn’t going to be given a voice by the establishment. If rugby supporters want to find a way out of the depressive fug of isolation, they must take the bit between their teeth and organise themselves.
A well-organised, well-financed grassroots rugby organisation could and should stand alone in Australian rugby, giving a long overdue place at the table to long suffering rugby loyalists, alongside the professional franchises, the national body and the players union.
Some will cry “Revolution!”. Perhaps. But the game has moved on and the elite have been the major beneficiary.
Why should the grassroots people be left out? The volunteer workers, coaches and unsung players are the ones who buy the Test tickets, the merchandise and the pay TV subscriptions.
They turn up to the fan days and make the Wallabies the figures of adoration that they are today. Why should they have no voice in the direction of Australian rugby?
Whatever happens next on the Spring Tour, the issues are clearly bigger than the next Test match. Disrespected and shunned, Australian rugby supporters are rightly angry.
They must find their voice. The future of Australian rugby depends on it.