NZ still the clear favourites but becoming beatable with the ageing of McCaw and Carter. Just look at the odometers of these two blokes:
– Carter (32 years old, 100 tests, 128 SR games over 11 years)
– McCaw (33 years old, 127 tests, 131 SR games over 13 years)

Those numbers are just ridiculous – a huge amount of miles on the legs. They are still great players, but they are a few steps slower than they were at the last RWC and will decline at an increasing rate over the next couple of years. In fact, a number of key ABs are in decline:

Carter (32, 100 tests, 128 SR)
McCaw (33, 127 tests, 131 SR)
Nonu (32, 91 Tests, 144 SR)
C.Smith (32, 77 tests, 110 SR)
Mealamu (35, 113 tests, 162 SR)
Woodcock (33, 110 tests, 139 SR)
Kaino (31, 51 tests, 95 SR)
Crockett (31, 27 tests, 140 SR)
B. Franks (30, 31 tests, 114 SR)

That is an absolute Murderers row of outstanding test players who will not improve this year and will likely noticeably decline. Adding to this, there are plenty of quality players which are currently at the peak of their powers, and will be heavily relied upon:
Read (28)
Dagg (26)
Messam (30)
B. Smith (28)
Faumuina (27)
Coles (27)
O. Franks (26)
Cruden (25)
Whitelock (25)
A. Smith (25)

Of course, this is NZ, so there are plenty of good players coming through, but not of the McCaw/Carter quality:
Savea (23)
Retallick (23)
Barrett (23)
Luatua (23)
Kerr Barlow (24)
Piutau (22)
Tuipulotu (21)
Perenara (22)

All in all, the young guys coming through and those at their peaks are not as far ahead of SA and Aust as those in decline. The ABs are still the clear number 1 but the gap is definitely closing, as its impossible to replace the quality that is on the wrong side of 30.

Given the Roar readership demographics and justifiable positivity around the Tahs, I can see a large number of Tahs making the team – Folau, AAC, KB and Foley in the backs, Palu, Hoops, Kepu in the forwards look likely while one or two of JackPot, TPN, Skelton, Phipps, etc might ride the wave and sneak in.

Of course, there is no way the tahs should have more than 4-5 in the 1st XV for the whole comp as the talent is spread pretty widely. Its not a very ‘representative’ survey group, but hey, as a Tahs supporter still on a high after Saturday, its hard to argue with democracy.

Absoluteley right Ryan – potential certainly gets people excited but is difficult to capitalise on.

2020 is our best chance, 2016 will be way too early for Exum, Simmons and Maker. Basketball players peak between 25 and 28, these 3 will all be under 22 in 2016, so will likely only have a limited impact.

By 2020 these 3 will be hitting their straps while Mills, Delly,etc will still be going well. Sure, Bogut, Ingles, etc will be gone but they aren’t winning any medals for us anyway. Need to replace them and build depth, but this is our big chance IMHO. I predict a 5th-8th place finifh in 2016

Bennett is no superstar but will be much better this year – he’s in shape and not injured, will develop over time.

The question is who does CLE have to give up to MIN for Love? MIN will target Wiggins but that looks like an overpay for CLE given MIN is a forced seller. But then Bennett, Thompson, Waiters aren’t quite good enough.

A starting 5 of LeBron, Love, Kyrie, Wiggins and Varajao would be best in the league, with shooters coming off the bench – Ray Allen, Mike Miller, etc.

Maybe a 3 way trade with someone else involved to make everyone happy.

Fig leaf? Of course he’s in RWC contention – clearly one of the top 3 wingers in Aust. Legitimately sounds like he wants to stay but needs the cash

If he comes back for the SR season, he should be eligible as GSmith was for the Lions.

Big call for such an untried player – but if he can deliver, he will be just as important as Izzy, as we haven’t had a physically dominant lock/6/8 like him for decades

Good to see the Wallabies prevail in an forward dominated battle but I dont think many of the 28,000 fans will be flocking back to the next Melbourne test – didn’t seem like much atmosphere with the place half full and nothing much to cheer about on the field.

Fin – Agree we need a new lock pairing for the RWC but throwing a young bloke who is not even consistently starting for his club in the deep end against the French could do more harm than good. You need to bring these guys along gradually, building their confidence and experience.

Ben – I’d care if we lost to the French at home – no test matches against tier 1 nations should be seen as development matches. If we are going to win the RWC we need to first beat the ABs in the RC and to do that we need some momentum in these build up tests. Skelton is better off playing a smaller role in a coherent team than just being thrown out there while hoping for the best.

Not a bad strategy but I would be cautious in starting Skelton at this stage of his development. Would be less pressure to make a cameo off the bench against an experienced French pack

If the 6N gets in the way of the long NH club season, that is hardly a SH issue.

I recall various NH players and clubs complaining recently about the short turnaround after the domestic finals and the June tests – why not shift them back a few weeks to allow a couple of weeks off for the NH and let the SR season finish? I’m clearly missing something here…

While $$$ talks, and the NH has it, as Spiro mentioned, an ABs test at Twickers/Millenium is a huge draw for them, so leverage can be applied by both.

As you say Scott, using one players stats in one game in isolation don’t tell you a lot.

While I didn’t think Palu played particularly well against the Rebels, he didn’t play poorly and certainly wasn’t overshaddowed by Higgers.

The Tahs pack seems to lift with him in the side – hard to quantify or isolate this impact, but we have seen this play out for yrs with the Tahs.

At this stage of his career he should be an impact player off the bench – so start Higgers, bring Palu (and Skelton) on with 20 to go to unleash 250kgs of havoc against a tiring opposition.

McCalman has never been a test 8 IMO so should only be used as injury cover in the squad.

Great article BB

I can see the logic, would be a shame for AU and NZ but if a top 14 comp can be achieved in a reasonable time frame with good player retention, SA should consider it.

I do wonder about the economics of it though. $200K sallaries seem low and may drive an exodus of players to NH and AU/NZ.

While it would be an initial blow to SR financially, it may be in the long term best interests of trans tasman rugby as it would remove much of the friction in the schedule and increase the amount of marketable product for AU and NZ audiences.

Is that in the best interests of Aussie rugby though?

Why pay a 33 year old $500K next year to come home when we should be developing the youth for the next world cup?

Tahs needed a reality check. For a team to play so poorly and still only lose by 5? I would take some positives out of that. Plenty of time to address some of these deficiencies.

Set piece has been average in the wins but gets glossed over as we focus on Folau or KB. The line out in particular has been a rabble.

Not sure about Foley/KB 10/12 combination. Don’t really have a solution, but we need some straight hard running in the 12 channel. Maybe stick one of Foley or KB at 10 with the other on the bench as an impact player and play a more traditional 12 (Horne?). Need to keep Izzy at 15, AAC at 13.

It will be a debacle if it goes ahead this year, I would have thought having this ready for next year would still be a stretch, let alone in a few months time.

95% of fans know absolutely nothing about this comp – you need to market the hell out of it for next year – even then I see 3-5yrs of significant losses if you want to run the comp professionally.

Why FOX agreed to televise it this year with such a short preparation time is mind boggling. I would imagine they would want a quality product on the screen? They certainly wont be getting one this year.

nice work Jez

As Johnno highlights, you could certainly argue for greater investment in grass roots on the back of this data but as you clearly state, you cannot argue that the clubs support the wallabies financially.

The ARU should make a greater indirect investment in the clubs through building exposure to rugby beyond the heartland into the RL dominated regions to actually grow the game, building a larger revenue pool for the clubs in the process.

New world record for early overly optimistic Tahs predictions.

Most at least wait until week 1 of the season

I’ll waitl until week 6

Looking forward to seeing Dante play… He’s supposed to be a beast. Shame the NBL couldn’t get a cameo from him in his mandatory 1yr post high school.

Definitely the right option to keep a low profile though. When your a top 5 pick you can only really go in one direction

Well written article. Other points I would highlight:

– the AIS has been instrumental in our success over the past 20yrs. We have led the world in sport science over the past 20yrs.

– the level of per capita investment from Governments in Australia must be well above other countries. This speaks to the national priorities highlighted in the article. I would imagine private investment (sponsorship, wealthy individuals, etc) would be lower than some other top countries (US in particular with college system funded through endowments)

Would love to see any analysis that has been done on these two points as I think they are critical, particularly over the past 20yrs of professionalism.

Would be a brave move to break up a performing pace attack for someone who hasn’t had any real preparation for high pressure test match cricket. BBL doesn’t count.

Bailey is an obvious change, Siddle offers more to the team than strike and economy rates. Patto and Bird will get their chances as someone will fall out of form or get injured shortly. Changing what has been our key advantage is a risk not worth taking at this stage.

As a casual tennis fan who is tired of Tomics attitude and lack of on-court intensity, NK was a breath of fresh air – how good is this kid! Missed watching Kokkinakis at the open but looking forward to catching him too.

Only watched the first 2 sets but that was the Most exciting match I’d seen in years. Crowd was going off – would have been a great match to be at.

Unfortunately he was limited in the last 3 sets but he toughed it out and was humble afterwards. Exactly what tennis australia needs.

Agreed – a massive backwards step.

Far too simplistic an argument as:
– there is no guarantee the WA and VIC NRC teams would be competitive – they would lose virtually all of their quality players to SR or overseas. Fans would obviously lose interest.
– I’m not sure this would benefit talent development. The article talks about how Higgers and Godwin would benefit from a better team around them. While this is the case, you would have far fewer opportunities for young players to get on the field. Would the likes of Fardy, Mowen, Godwin, Chris FS, etc even be in one of the three starting XVs?

3 SR teams provide only 45 opportunities for players to have an impact. When a RWC squad has 30 spots, this seems a bit light – I would rather have 75 opportunities to find the Fardys of this world. I don’t think the NRC can fill the gap.

As with all sports, older athletes are prolonging their careers through science and conditioning. They are able to lose half a step every few yrs rather than a step or two. Keeps the 33yo player much more physically competitive with the 23yo while exploiting the experience gap.

Interesting points – agree with your thoughts on the GF ratings. Why not start a little earlier, increase the frequency of games and finish just before the start of the footy season.

I’m not sure about the impact of the NBA season drawing fans away. In most cases, I would expect those hard core bball fans will watch both, the issue is drawing in new fans. Also, the high quality NBA games can be used for cross-marketing purposes by the NBL.

Also, not sure what you mean by the final paragraph… Do you mind expanding on that?

Forgot to mention initially, this is a very good, well researched article, thanks Michael.