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Australians were better and far more disciplined rugby players when the code was amateur.
The reasons were simple.
The vast majority had jobs, generally nine to five, others were uni students, they all paid an annual subscription to be a member of a club, they trained Tuesday and Thursday nights after work, played their competition games on Saturday afternoon, had a big big night out on Saturday, recovered on Sunday, and went off to work again Monday.
Very simple, very disciplined.
The best of them had to get time off work to play representative games.
It was even harder to get permission to tour overseas for three months.
Somehow they did it, thanks to understanding bosses, but it wasn’t easy.
Those were the days the Wallabies won the 1991 Rugby World Cup with Bobby Dwyer the coach, and Nick Farr-Jones the skipper.
Rugby went pro in 1996, so the bulk of the successful 1999 Rugby World Cup squad, with Rod Macqueen the coach and John Eales the skipper, were still disciplined from their amateur days.
I keep mentioning discipline because that was the key factor to juggle normal life with an international rugby career.
But that’s where Australian rugby discipline has dramatically changed since the professional era took hold.
Or to be more accurate, the lack of discipline.
The modern-day pro rugby footballer is programmed every day of the week by the head coach as to what they will do once they’ve slept in every day.
Be it train, be it gym sessions, be it tactical sessions, or doing something different away from rugby to stop going stale, the players are rarely thinking for themselves.
There’s no discipline in that, they’ve become robots of the coach.
And that’s the way Australians have been playing in competition – as robots with seemingly no Plan B.
If you took Israel Folau, Kurtley Beale, Will Genia, David Pocock, Bernard Foley’s boot, and to a lesser extent Michael Hooper out of the Wallabies, they would be lost.
(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
They are disciplined footballers, with Hooper’s biggest problem to decide if he’s a forward or a back.
The big difference is comparing Australian rugby with New Zealand.
In many ways that’s unfair, with rugby across the ditch a religion while Australia has to do head-to-head battle with AFL, NRL, and the A-League for media coverage and crowds.
And they are not winning, and never will until discipline returns.
The vast difference between Australian and New Zealand rugby shows up in the career stats covering 16 Tri-Nations, and six Rugby Championships.
The All Blacks have scored plus 1137 in points for and against, Australia minus 282, South Africa minus 334, and Argentina minus 520.
All Blacks and daylight.
It would be fairer to compare the Rod Macqueen and Michael Cheika eras.
Both played their club rugby as back-rowers in the amateur days, Macqueen with Warringah, Cheika with Randwick.
Both started businesses from scratch – Macqueen a point-of-sale merchandising business, Cheika a fashion house – and both turned into highly successful multi-million dollar businesses under their direct control.
But their rugby coaching careers differ due to discipline.
Macqueen won the 1999 Rugby World Cup, Bledisloe Cups, Tri-Nations Cup, and the historic 2-1 victory over the British and Irish Lions with the bulk of his troops still disciplined from their amateur days.
Besides, if any failed to show the discipline Macqueen demanded, he would be rapidly replaced.
Cheika made 2015 Rugby World Cup final, won the 2015 Rugby Championship, and the 2014 Super Rugby title with the Waratahs, ending a 20-year drought.
(Photo: Glenn Nichols)
But all his troops have been full-time rugby professionals from the moment they left school, none of them have been disciplined in the world of business, none of them have had to think outside the rugby square.
And unlike Macqueen, if current Wallabies didn’t show the discipline Cheika demands, there isn’t the depth to punt them.
Little wonder there have been times when Cheika has blown his stack at the ridiculous mistakes that are made at critical times.
But he may as well get used to it with discipline mighty hard to come by as a team factor.
Be it Super Rugby, or internationals, the rugby basics of passing, catching, support play, possession retention, and defending are far too often lacking.
The reason?
Lack of discipline.