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Sure, the Wallabies could mathematically still make the quarter finals but it’s highly unlikely, so Australian rugby fans must look for greener pastures elsewhere.
2024 must start and bring with it Super Rugby Pacific success because for the first time, for a long time, Super Rugby sides stand a better chance to secure silverware than the national side.
Australian rugby fans can’t be made to wait until the three-Test international series against Wales in July next year to taste success, it must start in February.
If we remove Eddie Jones from the direct equation for a minute, Rugby Australia must promote, improve, and lift Australian Super Rugby teams.
The concepts of grassroots investment, centralisation and pathways et cetera have all been spoken about enough on this website and fans in Australia understand where the systems are deficient. Steps must be taken by the governing body within the next 12 months to put the game first and leave behind parochial and selfish tendencies.
The Super Rugby clubs and their coaches have a vital role to play in the next 12 months to improve the fortunes of the Australian game. They can start by winning and developing those habits within the young Wallabies who will be reintegrated in their systems.
Jake Gordon of the Waratahs. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
The pass mark for 2024 should be four Aussie teams in the top eight, two in semis and one Aussie team holding the cup at the end.
Why must it start at SRP? Because the Wallaby players in the squad have around 50 Super Rugby caps or less and are obviously at a stage in their careers where they’re not ready to carry the country on their backs.
This is not a slight on them, it is an objective view on 2023 as a whole. It’s unrealistic to suggest these players, most of whom have not been regular starters for their Super sides for more than one season, to be world beaters, no matter who the coach is. They are undercooked and out of their depth.
With that said, Super Rugby 2024 is an amazing opportunity for the young players to take their learnings into a longer season and upskill their teammates whilst also continuing their own improvement.
The more intense training schedule, the different coaching and the better quality opposition all makes for learnings, especially for the young and inexperienced players within the Wallabies.
SRP teams have been working around the clock to give their squads more games a year, to give their sides the cohesion, continuity and the miles in the legs the Northern Hemisphere’s sides already enjoy and benefit from.
The Queensland Reds, Melbourne Rebels and ACT Brumbies have all made partnerships with Japanese clubs while the Western Force are three quarters through their four-game series against the Cheetahs from South Africa.
As an aside to the World Cup action, the Force are playing some exciting and expansive rugby and the ledger is 2-1 to the Cheetahs.
Despite this innovation and dedication from the clubs’ best performers down to the bottom two, there are those who believe culling the Australian Super Rugby teams down to just three teams is prudent.
“I played at the Brumbies, I played at the Waratahs. If it meant getting rid of one of them to make Australian rugby better, I’d be all for it because we don’t have the depth and talent to play this many players at a professional level,” Hoiles said in Stan Sports’ post-match review after the Wales defeat.
Tom Wright of the Brumbies. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
In other countries this would work, but because the sports landscape in Australia is so congested these players would rather leave and earn good money instantly than stay and fight for a spot, and who can blame them?
It is a fool’s gold way to create synthetic depth and would push the peripheral players to rugby league and other codes, so less options to be Super Rugby players is not the way to encourage growth.
You could caveat this with an argument that the money not spent on five sides could be spent on securing the next generation of talented school kids, but that is big load of trust to put in the top office at a time when they are considering throwing money at washed up league veterans.
It would also be five years or so before Australian rugby saw the fruits of such destructive labour.
World Cup-winning Wallaby great Matt Burke would tend to agree this route would not serve Australian rugby union.
Burke is a member of the Waratahs board and he says the Australian market is saturated with multiple options for our talented youth.
“[Rugby] says ‘we will give you the experience if you hang around’, [whereas] the clubs come in from rugby league and go ‘we will give you a couple grand, some boots, some jerseys, we’ll take you to training’, so all of a sudden, they get hooked,” Burke said on ‘The Good the Bad and the Rugby Australia’ podcast.
“It’s a merry-go-round that’s gonna continue, so if we cut it down to three teams it’s gonna be even harder to get a start for the younger kids to come through, which is a really tricky cycle.”
Queensland Reds coach Les Kiss. (Photo by Brendan Hertel, QRU)
Where does this leave Australian rugby in 2024?
Les Kiss is now well and truly back in Australia and has a firm grip on the state of affairs at the Queensland Reds. Ballymore is even now owned by the state franchise putting it in a strong position.
Darren Coleman, Simon Cron, Kevin Foote, and Stephen Larkham are all at various stages of building the Waratahs, Force, Rebels, and Brumbies respectively.
Coleman is probably at the back of the pack with poor recruitment and the results in 2023 to match. Larkham leads the quartet having benefitted from a well regimented outfit left behind by Dan McKellar.
Foote and Cron have both done the best with what they have and have recruited well.
While Foote is just waiting for things to click, Cron is doing well to cultivate a young roster to unleash its building firepower.
None more so than Junior Wallabies representative Ronan Leahy and returned prodigy Harry Potter, who have been lighting up the Toyata Cheetahs series.
Rugby Australia must do a long list of things, but cutting Super Rugby teams is not one of them. Making sure these franchises have all the things they need to thrive in SRP 2024 is vital, because their success can be a source of pride and joy for Australian fans.
Super Rugby in 2024 can become, for the first time in a long time, the beacon of hope for Australian rugby.
If RA begin to bring about the changes that are required, Super Rugby will see the fruits of the labour first, before Aussies can bask in the light of the national team once again.
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.