It is August 2 2014 and Transformers: Age of Extinction is crushing the box office.
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams has every parent in Australia pulling their hair out.
Meanwhile, a Warringah local who attended a prestigious rugby school is currently Australia’s Prime Minister.
Another key moment is the Super Rugby final at Stadium Australia, played between the number one ranked team in the competition, New South Wales Waratahs against the Christchurch Crusaders.
The Waratahs walked away with a 33-32 triumph lead on the backs of Michael Hooper and Bernard Foley, and the atmosphere of Australian rugby was roaring in excitement.
Ten years later, Micheal Bay is still making the Transformers films (but they do not perform well), Pharrell Williams is far out of the public zeitgeist and that Warringah local has been replaced in the top job by a boy raised by a single mom in Marrickville.
Most importantly, the Waratahs lost 41-12 to the Auckland Blues in the quarterfinals.
The landscape of international rugby has shifted massively over the past ten years and the Waratahs’ fall from grace can be explained for two reasons.
1. The Ascension of South Africa
In 2014, the Super Rugby tournament consisted of fifteen teams; five from each country: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
This high level of competition fosters fantastic match-ups and it provides the Waratahs with great opportunities to play against strong South African forward packs with agile backs and improve the team’s skills.
However, the South African flight from Super Rugby in favour of European Rugby in August 2020 has drastically affected the NSW side.
With the absence of fantastic talent to play against, the Waratahs playing standards have dropped.
Since the exit from Super Rugby, South African teams have competed highly in the United Rugby Championship and against English and French teams in the European Rugby Championships as well as resounding victories in the Rugby Championships whilst Super Rugby and the Waratahs lag behind.
Pieter-Steph Du Toit and Handre Pollard of South Africa. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
2. Lack of Public Support and Shrinking Pool of Talent
Rugby in Australia has been falling in popularity over the last twenty years, particularly in the last ten and specifically, in Australia’s largest populated state, New South Wales.
The growing sports market in NSW is consistently shoving rugby and the Waratahs to the back of the bus.
Both the NRL and AFL continue to eat into rugby’s viewers particularly with rugby league taking long-time viewers away from rugby with exciting games.
There is also a growing media presence in Sydney with teams like the Sydney Roosters from the Eastern Suburbs and the Penrith Panthers from Western Sydney which takes ticket holders and TV viewers away from long-time rugby strongholds.
In 2014, the Waratahs were some of the hottest tickets in town; ten years later, the Waratahs were lucky to get 10,000 fans to games at Allianz Stadium.
The final reason that clearly highlights how the Waratahs have failed this past decade is the shrinking pool of talent the Waratahs have to pull from.
Twenty out of the thirty Waratahs players attended prestigious rugby schools in Sydney such as the Kings School in North Parramatta and St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill.
This diminishing batch of players is hurting the Waratahs as the quality of the players is lower and it does not help the public image of rugby in New South Wales as being a prestigious schoolboy sport played in ultra-rich private schools in the Eastern Suburbs and Lower North Shore.
Ten years on from that nail-biting finale in Olympic Park, the Waratahs have been in sharp decline, however, there appears to be hope with Darren Coleman and a young squad of Wallabies heading into the 2024 season.
This young team must stand up and fight or it might spell the start of another disappointing decade for Australia’s largest rugby club.
K.F.T.D.
Roar Rookie
Ahem - it’s called sport. There is no reason why grown men would put on some clobber and then go around donging each other over a piece of blown up pig skin.
Ben
Roar Rookie
It's the failure of the Australian rugby establishment to spread the game beyond it's elite. There, I fixed it for you.
Ben
Roar Rookie
Don't ask what Super Rugby has done for you but what have you done for Super Rugby? I think there has been a real lack of appreciation for Super Rugby from the Australian public. I base that on commentary I have seen on this thread for the past 20 years, a lot of which always had a problem with South Africa's involvement. Always Yarpies this and Yarpies that. Australian rugby in dire straits? Good. Couldn't happen to a better bunch.
Ben
Roar Rookie
Excellent article if it wasn't so unfortunate to have all these parochial Australians comments with their heads in the sand. God forbid anyone here admit that South Africa's, Japan and Argentina's departure did not completely wreck any semblance of an international competition that was Super Rugby. It must have been a complete financial trainwreck as sponsors and corporates reassessed their involvement with what is now basically an expanded NPC. With Australians it is all corporate speak and no soul. Where is your Rassie Erasmus, your Siya Kolosi, playing for the people and all that. God it must be excruciating living in the past like many Australians seem to do. Australia Rugby where is your Why?
scrum
Roar Rookie
There was a change in the interpretation of Jackal penalty criteria. Originally the jackal had to survive the clean out to gain a PK. This criteria was deleted mainly because of the increased risk of injury/ concussion. So now win the race & a clear attempt to lift the ball are the main criteria. Remembering that one of the prime principles of Rugby is that there should be a contest for possession at all phases this needs to be considered. But you are correct in that teams are more unwilling to play attacking Rugby from their own half. For me this is a reflection of the conservative approach by coaches who favour low risk rugby. On the other hand if the interpretations favour the side in possession too much we can end up with unlimited possession which favours one out running and a forward slug fest. It’s quite difficult to come up with interpretations that get the result many would prefer. Personally I do not buy into the NH conspiracy theory. The breakdown in general is well managed nowadays. Go back to the past and unplayables were very common which meant a scrum. And the argument that Refs blow the whistle too much at the breakdown is not borne out by the stats. There are less PKs now than in the past, most are at the breakdown but the number of breakdowns/ rucks/ mauls is also vastly increased from the past.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
Technically it's not rules themselves, but interpretations of the rules. A crucial one is the turnover. The northern hemisphere worked out that if there's too much competition allowed at the ruck, it's no longer safe to run the ball because of the risk of getting turned over. Within a small number of phases the ball will inevitably get turned over. Which means instead of running the ball, the teams will kick it away as it's safer. Which favours the northern hemisphere kicking style. It means there is no running rugby, which is the case now. Of course there will be some turnovers at the ruck in any interpretation of rules, but they are now tweaked so the turnovers happens very quickly, meaning no team that seriously wants to win can run the ball very often
scrum
Roar Rookie
So what specific rules are you raising
AndreD
Roar Rookie
You can't deny they've often had a decent roster, so.......
AndreD
Roar Rookie
They've always had quality players, the big boys from the big state, but have been WOEFUL for years. It's gotta be cultural. They need some time with Razor (Ex Crusaders). There is a culture you could follow.
Ankle-tapped Waterboy
Roar Rookie
Perhaps the article could mention another NSW issue, of not paying players up to the salary cap. Skimping on player salaries turned out to be counter-productive at getting a top-tier collection of players, who could have foreseen that?
Ankle-tapped Waterboy
Roar Rookie
Only for the bits they earned. Mind you, they really did put in the effort!
Ankle-tapped Waterboy
Roar Rookie
>What’s a single mom? One mom. In further explanation, a "mom" is a mother who is US American or is a single mum being referred to by a US American who doesn't know any better. One presumes that the Hon Albanese is of American background, for his mother to be referred to as a "single mom" not a "single mum".
Sebas
Roar Rookie
The waratahs, if they're all sourcing players from rich families and rich backgrounds, they're competing with people where rugby is their way out of poverty, or to support their families (pacific Islanders Pumas and South Africans for example) To me the worst part of most of the Waratahs teams is their absolute lack of guts, no fighting spirit at all, and it's across the board......like someone said here, they still get paid, win or lose, by 5 or 50.....
Sterling
Roar Rookie
Keggy, "Maybe the quality desire and talent of players in the current comps are not as good to represent Australia as previously." I think it's at least on par. The difference is there simply wasn't a regular season SR for players to be selected for national teams before 1995.
Keggy
Roar Rookie
Hospital Cup used to be good quality in the 80`s and 90`s. Players were plucked from Hospital cup ( premier rugby first grade ) in those days to pay for Queensland and the Wallabies. Don`t know about Shute Shield, but i do remember Phil Kearns was picked from Randwick seconds to make his debut for the Wallabies in 1989. And Tim Horan played Colts 1 in 1988 and then made his debut for Australia the year after. Maybe the quality desire and talent of players in the current comps are not as good to represent Australia as previously.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
That's quality in terms of effectiveness, not style from the point of view of the person watching. Pre-professional rugby was doubtless worse in terms of how effective the teams played the game. But the issue is whether running rugby was played more than now. The real time running rugby was favoured was in the late 90s, early 2000s, before the northern hemisphere worked out they were worse at it and shifted the rules to favour kicking rugby.
Peta Smith
Roar Rookie
No worries Jacko! Yup, me either…he’s just the latest in a long line of people with “Kiwi-chips” on their shoulders on this forum…Micko, Peter K, Rhys…thankfully the spiteful comments are less & less. Shame though, I got banned twice for calling it out. Would love to have my original account back.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
And that is part of the issue. The Force had to play 4 games but had to count the wages for SRP. Those 4 games could have been against the Oz teams in a 5 round SR Oz.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
No I am saying that previously they had one management team for the CC and one for SR. They now have one team that overseas everyone. All the CC lads will just jump in with the URC group (most of the CC team should be in the URC wider squad anyway. The S&C coach will be the same for both teams so now the Bulls hire one coaching team and one S&C team but before had two. The CC and URC teams can play home games different weeks leaving the stadium open for events in the off season. Allows players like Moodie to be seen by White and put straight into the URC team. Look at NPC v SRP, different teams, different contracts, more Overheads as can't share costs.
Bliksem
Roar Rookie
I watch a couple of games played in the 1990s including both the 1991 and 1995 RWC finals. It was the era before professionalism. I am not so sure that the quality of the game where better then. I am confident (with no way to proof or disprove it) that the current sides would make mince meat of the 1991 and 1995 sides. Is the quality worse or better? There are less basic mistakes, stupid penalties, players are better conditioned, skills are better land so is defensive systems. Is the quality worse or did the game just change with professionalism?