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With the current state of rugby in Austalia – an arguably under-performing national team, funding difficulties and low levels of public interest – there are varied views as to how to lift the standards in an increasingly competitive national and international market.
Thinking back to the highs of 10 years ago, a solution lies in re-discovering what makes Australian rugby unique and using this to appeal to supporters.
I grew up in a peak time for Australian rugby. My earliest memories are the early to mid 90s and the Wallabies of the time – predominately David Campese. But my real coming of age was the Brumbies and Wallabies golden period of the late 90s/early 2000s. George Gregan, Stephen Larkham, Joe Roff, Owen Finegan, George Smith, Jeremy Paul and co.
These were champion players I had the luxury of being able to see play live in a packed Bruce Stadium full of parochial Canberrans every other week of the Super 12 season, or on the big screen at the Brumbies Club for away games.
There’s no doubt on-field success contributed to this, but the team played an attractive, entertaining and accessible style of rugby that the administration was able to sell – not only to rugby tragics but also to the casual observer.
These three factors have been slowly slipping in subsequent seasons to the point where games can become unappealing, boring and bogged down in technicalities. Unfortunately, the psyche of rugby supporters doesn’t help. Many of us will only attend if the team is not only winning, but winning in style.
Take the Brumbies for example – 10 years ago many regular season games would come close to selling out. Now they can barely fill half the stadium for finals matches.
I have been living in Melbourne recently and it’s been great to have the Rebels here but the novelty of a new team has worn off. Although they have been involved in many entertaining games, the fact is they don’t often win so supporters aren’t coming.
It’s a staggering contrast with how obsessive Victorians are with their AFL team. This tribalism needs to be better harnessed in rugby to return crowds and increase awareness of the game.
The Call of the Wallaby series on Foxtel and the advent of the Gold Brigade are great steps in the right direction and I’d encourage people to watch this series if they haven’t already.
The NRC will also create another level of support – if only you could watch the games or even listen to them on radio for that matter! Hopefully future seasons will see more games broadcast on Fox or go one better and have them on free-to-air or stream online.
This brings up the next question, which is the quality of the product. As mentioned, Aussie rugby fans love to back a winner. A bit of a contrast to other sports where we like to support an underdog. Maybe this only applies when Australians aren’t involved in the game.
But I feel what has been lacking is an identifiable style and character to the Wallabies. For the casual rugby fan, internationals are the jumping off point to watching rugby and it’s not currently a safe bet as to what you are going to get with the Wallabies.
The All Blacks play a clinical, pressure-filled, counter-punching game. The Springboks bring a huge physical contest. The Pumas have their dominant scrum. The English master the technical side of the game.
Even the Cherry Blossoms bring voracious enthusiasm. But in recent years it has been hard to pinpoint how the Wallabies have played the game. The influence of foreign coaches has contributed, for better or worse.
So has the creation of new teams at provincial level which has perhaps diluted the player pool and have included many international players.
On the subject of personnel, the Wallabies may not have historically had the biggest, fastest or fiercest players. But what has been the hallmark of the greatest Australian sides has been playing creative, intelligent rugby with a huge sense of belief.
That is not a description you could make of the current team.
We have had some great moments and some great individual players. However, there has been a lack of coherent style of play or at the very least, this style has been too varied with changing coaches and players.
Selection policies have changed from game to game and put players in positions which have negatively impacted the overall style of the team. This is both a product of lack of depth, where a player may be in the best seven backs in the country but not necessarily the best in any one position, and selection of players out of position.
I’m finishing this article after the Wallabies versus Springboks match, which I think the Wallabies were lucky to win. But win they did, and the final ten minutes showed some of the quality play and belief that past sides have displayed.
There were so many games in the John Eales and George Gregan years in which we were behind in the final minutes but managed to scrape the finish line due to a never-say-die attitude. This attitude truly represents the Wallabies style – being seriously tested but having the ability and conviction to produce the answer.
To me part of the answer turned out to simply be better support play, which links in to this sense of belief. Mid way through the second half, Matt Toomua managed a good break in mid-field. If this were an All Blacks side there would have been two to three players in support, to either take the offload or at least clear out the defenders.
However, the Wallabies produced neither of these and the result was a turn over penalty against us. Fast forward to the final minutes, the Wallabies produced a few offloads, good support play and a quality finish to score the winning try.
This is evidence that we are moving in the right direction, but are not quite the finished product. We had some questionable refereeing and generous decisions from the Springboks not taking penalty goals to aid our cause.
But it’s the ability to absorb pressure and put it back on the opposition, something the All Blacks do so well, which is lacking at the moment – a big contributor to some of the schoolboy mistakes the Wallabies seem to produce particularly against New Zealand.
I really dislike the scathing, negative articles that have been written about Australian rugby recently, particularly in regards to beating the All Blacks – with this generation being one of the greatest teams to exist in any sport.
And by no means is the state of Australian rugby in some sort of dire circumstance on the brink of collapse, as some comments might have you believe.
There is certainly a large following, quality players and I love the fact we have the NRC now. I just think a few tweaks can make a huge difference in the way the game functions in this country which will pay dividends in both on-field results and supporter enjoyment.
With the third-tier competition, multiple competitive provincial franchises and a national coach tapping into what Australian sides do best, we now have the structures in place to support the progression of Australian rugby.
And although Ewen McKenzie is still finding his feet at international level, the foundations are in place to produce a quality international side which can play in with the character and methods that have brought success to past Australian teams.
Innovation is the key from here to get ahead of the trends and build the faith and passion to match the past greats of Australian rugby.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.