The rugby world needs the Waratahs to win

The rugby world needs the Waratahs to win the Super Rugby championship.

I firmly believe this statement and I’d like to tell you why. I would like to start by going back in time, to the year 2005.

This was a year that both Michael Cheika and the Waratahs had pivotal moments in their respective rugby existence.

If we go back to 2005 we saw a Waratahs style of play that was well planned, but limiting. For the Waratahs it was a year that they made their first Super Rugby final. But it was also a year that proved they just weren’t good enough.

For me, poetically, that was a good thing. If they had have ‘jagged’ a win in that final, it would’ve painted a misleading picture as to how to be successful.

You see they had a good team but they played without real physicality, passion or flare and subsequently gained no plaudits.

The Waratahs culture and playing style needed improving. Clearly the lesson wasn’t fully learned for a while because it took a few years for McKenzie to be sacked and for the search to begin.

But who would be the saviour?

On a side note I have no doubt that McKenzie’s sacking was the catalyst to change his coaching style – and both the Reds and now the Wallabies have and are reaping the rewards.

For Michael Cheika, 2005 was the year that he was signed, from relative obscurity mind you, to coach the Leinster club in Ireland.

Leinster was a club that was rich in history but in complete disarray.

From 2005 to 2010, Cheika changed the Leinster club culture from habitual losers in the Heineken Cup, to glorified performers and eventual winners.

As some one that was in Europe to watch this transformation, I look back now on what occurred fondly. Not because I was a Leinster fan but because of the style of play they brought into European rugby to get to the top.

Just as Europe was being monstered by Munster’s ‘ten man rugby’ style, Leinster rose from its own proverbial ashes. In a very real sense Leinster were the polar opposite to its more mundane and more successful rival Munster.

When Leinster finally won it in 2009, Cheika had showed the way. They had won with expansive ball-in-hand play but not at the expense of physicality.

This style of play, which so delighted crowds that Leinster had to move stadiums to fit them all in, was paving the way for the likes of Toulon to change the way the game is played in Europe.

To this day, weather permitting, the game in Europe is massively entertaining and you are missing out if you don’t watch it.

On the other-hand, Super Rugby is on the verge of going the other way. For some sides like the Brumbies and Sharks, sadly it already has. Even sadder is the fact that the great Crusaders are topping their conference by having scored the fewest number of tries of the New Zealand teams.

Just as the rugby world needed Leinster to become European champions and defeat the evil that was Munster, the Waratahs need to win Super Rugby and defeat the ‘Jake-Ball’ nonsense that is creeping into the psyche of too many sides.

Once again, Cheika is a beacon of hope.

The Waratahs have topped the competition by scoring more tries than anyone else. They have topped it by keeping the ball in hand more than anyone else. They have topped it by bringing a new level of physicality that has also seen them concede less-points than anyone else.

All coaches and players have been put on notice in terms of how to be successful. This will echo even more loudly when the Waratahs rightly go on and win the thing. Obviously I predict they will as I have been doing all season.

When I wrote previous articles in March 2014, I knew deep down that Cheika’s style would deliver the goods despite the ‘nay-sayers’.

I have seen the persistence in playing style at Leinster, despite their hiccups, and I saw it all pay off in the end.

This inspired me to predict in April that despite four early losses the Waratahs would still win. I am quite proud that I also predicted that the Brumbies and Force will come down to the last game. My only mistake is that I thought it would’ve all been closer. I’m glad it’s not.

Some have ridiculed me along the way and many may also say that this article is also premature.

“The Waratahs haven’t really won anything yet,” they might say.

In my eyes the Waratahs have, in one sense, already won. They have already won by bringing attractive rugby back to Super Rugby in a timely fashion.

The rugby world now needs the Waratahs to win the Super Rugby championship and there is not a side in Super Rugby that has the game to beat them!

Bring it on!