I’m not measuring Wallabies 2003 against Wallabies 2023 or Super Rugby AU teams 2003 against Super Rugby AU teams 2023. All that tells you is we are performing worse which is not particularly helpful. The cohesion index measures those teams against other teams from the same era (i.e. Brumbies 2003 against Leinster 2003).

If the 3 Australian SR teams were high (let’s assume they were in the top 10 and the Brumbies were number 1 – which they were) back in the late 90s relative to every other professional rugby team in the world, and now our current 5 teams have fallen back demonstrably in that list to be between 30-40, again relative to other international rugby clubs, the Wallabies are now selecting from a less cohesive system than they had 20 years ago. Ireland however have a top five team (Leinster) and 3 other clubs which I believe rank pretty high too (top 10). International team cohesion is largely a product of the system underneath it, as it has been for the Argentina team which has had a generation of Jaguares playing together, Ireland with Leinster and possibly Scotland with Glasgow/Edinburgh. Yes, in the latter case Finn Russell plays in France but he started at Glasgow for five seasons. Even Chile has made it’s first World Cup and saw off the larger playing base USA Eagles which was definitely assisted by the bulk of their team playing for Selknam in the Supa Liga. Does high cohesion guarantee a country to win a World Cup? Absolutely not. Does it guarantee you will play to to the best of your potential? The evidence of that based on points percentage (which is what Gainline use rather than win/loss percentage) would say yes.

That’s not what I’m saying at all and I don’t know how to explain it further. You should get Ben or Simon from Gainline on your pod and hear it from them. It would give better context and understanding to what cohesion is and how it operates than a few throw away lines from Eddie in a presser.

I’m not. This was a measurement of the current Australia Super Rugby teams against other international club teams now (at least up till 2021) against where they ranked 20 years ago (when they were higher). From memory when we spoke in 2021, all the Irish team where in the top ten, the Crusaders naturally high and a scattering of other teams (including English) in between.

From Gainline’s LinkedIn Post 2 weeks ago “With @premrugby won by the #1 #TWI team, @URCOfficial by the #2, @top14rugby 4 semi-final teams all in the top 5 and the #1 & #2 teams into the @SuperRugby semi-finals it’s safe to say… #CohesionMatters #TWI #Governance”

Well historical as of two years ago Brett but there has been nothing monumental since that time to change it. Australia teams still play shorter seasons and there is no reserve grade comp to get shared time between the wider comp. 30 odd games in two seasons is not going to address the gap with European clubs that are playing around 40-45 games in that same period. The Brums, Tahs and Reds might have improved on their 2021 figures but will be stay will behind Leinster et al.

Based on Gainline’s work. It was said by Ben when I last interviewed him on my podcast. Unfortunately they don’t publicise alot of their work so obviously hard to reference but occasionally they offer a snapshot of information in interviews. At the height of the Wallabies run in 1999/2000 the three Australian teams were right up the top.

I think historically the French and English have had similar problems in terms of unfamiliarity due to the spread of clubs they draw from. The English of 2003 a significant exception as Sir Clive tried to keep the bulk of the team together for multiple seasons. But interestingly they then tend to do better as the tournament progresses as the exceptional individual talent they have from larger player pools start to gel as the competition progresses. I think Australia has the same talented group which is why I remain optimistic about France, just wanting our injury count to stay lower than it was in 2022.

How so? Most players (save for a few like Campo) were working day jobs while still playing. How do you quantify it otherwise when no one was professionally contracted till end of 95?

Given he is starting with Australian clubs now having some of the lowest levels of cohesion since when he last coached, he doesn’t have much of an option other than to choose individual experience over shared experience and hope that is enough. It’s possible that he could have gone with a Brumbies spine and then filled it in from there but clearly there are stand out players (Cooper, Kerevi, Koroibete in the backs for starters) that are impossible to ignore given they are proven at international level.

Cohesion starts underneath the national team. It is a concept that should be adopted by all the member unions and needs to start from the earliest point (academy). If our Super Rugby clubs were structured better and we had more game time, then you would have cohesive teams feeding the national team. Like it was for Argentina and like it generally is for Ireland and New Zealand. I thought it very telling that Colin Mansbridge made it clear during your interview that Canterbury have a policy of recruiting 75% of their squad from their own system.

Great article Geoff. We can definitely be doing better. Although the same financial issue is at play with coaches as there is with players. The salaries overseas are far better. Unless a coach is in line to get a contract with a Super Rugby club or a Super Rugby coach is gearing towards the Wallabies position, they will be heading overseas just like McKellar. I know at least one top international coach who was curious about the Queensland role but just couldn’t take the pay cut. We’re very fortunate that Eddie Jones is doing it for the “love not money”.

I firmly believe that more depth at the professional foundation is what will give the Wallabies the best chance. Right now, only having 1 or 2 Super Rugby teams competitive is not helping the Wallabies. Thereby the fix has to come at making at least 3 maybe 4 Super Rugby teams more competitive. It appears that the Force and Rebels are taking the initiative in doing this by playing more games at the end of the season (Force) or having the bulk of their squad play together in club rugby (Rebels). It’s actually quite ridiculous that the provinces have to do this when RA should be coming up with this initiative especially as the Wallabies will be the end beneficiary.

“Personally I see a NRC scenario that bolsters club rugby by keeping club heroes geographically “funnelled” to stay in their regions.”
How would this realistically work? SRU would have to have the clubs agree to a recruitment/draft strategy to ensure this and then how is it actually enforceable? E.g. anyone could move house from say Western Sydney to the Eastern Suburbs if they just needed to change their residential address to benefit them.

My key issue with trying to build a following and inject tribalism into an NRC type comp is that in NSW and QLD they are always going to be artificial teams? Therefore how can you expect to get a following to justify the team’s existence when people are already engaged with their local club and Super Rugby team. It would take decades for the Rays vs Rams to reach the level of interest of Manly v Warringah if at all. Furthermore, when do NRC games play so that they aren’t going to clash with the other competitions? That’s why I think it should be considered primarily as a development competition run at cost with the overall benefit being to identify talent from club rugby and build depth for the Super Rugby teams. If crowds and audiences follow it then that is a bonus and the competition can start to reshape it for maximum fan engagement.

I think we can all agree the NRC was executed poorly. Some states bought into it (ACT and QLD) while others didn’t (NSW). I recall a Shute Shield coach telling me that many of his best players were interested in playing for a team because the time spent away on a weekend wasn’t worth losing 1 or 2 days work over. Especially when by the time NRC was played, the window for getting a SR contract had passed.

While tribalism and passion attached to it would be great, at this point, I think it’s largely about Super Rugby teams using it to build depth rather than to be a rival to premier club rugby.

The video largely focuses on the measurement of cohesion across both national teams and provincial teams around the world. These are objective measurements. While I considered things like professionalism in Australia and impacts of AIS, local club rugby, etc in my doco and podcast, much of that impact can’t be measured hence why it’s not presented in this video. All the statistics you see in that is based on a former Wallabies work and I can assure you it is concurred by leading Wallabies and international coaches including Eddie Jones himself.

And you’re right, the decline did start with 3 teams. We did better with 2. It just so happened that the third was an already established team in the Kookaburras as opposed to how the Force and Rebels started. While the Brumbies performed well in that period it was always at the expense of at least one other team (usually NSW).

2016 is too late I think. By that point we’ve had some head scratching home losses (Samoa 2011, Scotland 2013), two woeful World Cup campaigns (2007 and 2011) and lost the Bledisloe 15 straight times. I agree it started dropping during the early 2000s but from 2006 onwards we helped it by expanding poorly rather than making strong organic growth. If we had kept the three teams back then and fully committed to the ARC in 2007, I think we could have built the three Aussie teams to be all round competitive in Super Rugby by which point we would be better placed to expand to four times by around 2011.

But the then ARU wanted to get a greater share of the then SANZAR pie. Short term commercial hit for long term commercial pain. Just hope we don’t make similar poor commercial decisions from 2023 onwards.

The brain was me and I’m definitely not a Kiwi! The evidence to support this is all based on objective figures (shared game time by players within teams measured since the 1980s) and correlates pretty accurately with the rise and fall of certain nations. I’m yet to see an evidence based counter argument as to why expanding to more teams would make us more successful. If we flicked off the Kiwis and decided to create more Australian teams we would end up with something in between Super Rugby and Shute Shield/Hospitals Cup which means our players would be less prepared for International Rugby than they already are.

Great article mate. Perhaps I’m a little biased though! (Gold Digger director here) I was chatting to someone recently about the range of ideas being thrown around about amending current competitions or creating new ones, and they made the point that it sometimes takes a large number of ideas to be presented and dissected before you land on something that is workable. I like the thought that has gone into creating teams that are linked to a region and the clubs/schools within.

The key thing to note regarding the most cohesive clubs right now (Leinster and still Crusaders) is that they develop it through not just their top team but also by having a single reserve team underneath that doesn’t split talent too widely. So Leinster have the rest of their squad playing as “Leinster A” in the reserve grade Irish competition. Similarly, Crusaders have the bulk of their squad playing together for Canterbury although in recent years they do have players at Tasman. Also, there is a wealth of players that come from the local area, the Christchurch schools comp and for Leinster, identified from their very competitive Leinster Schools Competition. Rich local nurseries that feed their academies upon which they choose a majority of their squad rather than recruiting from other parts of the country.

Your NRC model is probably too many teams for this to occur. NSW and QLD probably only should have 2 teams each while the Brumbies/Rebels and Force just have one each. A 7 team competition may not seem like enough but they could play two rounds home and away (12 games) plus finals. This would be a great start. Also, don’t expect it to be a huge crowd/high audience product. More a development competition like Sheffield Shield is for cricket.

Agree on number 3. I think steps have been taken (and continue to be taken) to address any issues with the state of the game. At the end of the day, if the stakes are there, people will look beyond the odd time delay or grind fest.

1. It is just not sustainable to have 1 or 2 Australian teams perform well while the rest occupy the bottom of the table. We all know NSW and QLD has the bulk of players however there is no reason why smaller hubs like Perth can’t recreate what the Brumbies or Crusaders have done. But I don’t think this will work in a competition where you get bashed about by teams in New Zealand.

2. The 22 match season is currently difficult to manage unless you start playing rugby at the start of January. At least two separate competitions running concurrently provide more matches for broadcast dollars.

Who says 6N will realign?

NZR too. I suspect the push is also coming from World Rugby to try and get their global season happening.

That’s fair. Although byes and loading could be considered. The benefit of having Super Rugby AU continue on underneath is that those games could be played during a Super Rugby Pacific bye week so there is still some rugby to watch.

I’m not actually advocating to reduce the competition. It’s more that the current 5 Aussie teams revert back to the Super Rugby AU format that was played in 2020-2021 and instead two new elite teams (essentially made up of the best 70 players) are formed to play in a 7+ Pacific competition. This actually creates more content for broadcast deals and enables more contracts for professional players.

I’ve heard from at least two well placed sources that RA has been considering shifting the whole season to align more with the northern hemisphere. Whether this actually happens or not is another thing but it goes to show you just how much influence the NH still has on the SH.

True. The restructured Top league is evidence of this. However the positive high performance impact of having a shadow national team is a reality and you could argue that this might be something AU/NZ will put forward if Japan want to become a viable part of TRC.

The problem currently is that SRP doesn’t have enough interest and value to justify expansion. Yet expansion is required if you want to get the Japanese market which is definitely worth something. The idea in this proposal is that you don’t actually remove the Australian teams so there is not cutting of teams from Perth or Melbourne. They just don’t play overseas teams anymore nor do the Tahs, Reds or Brumbies. It will be somewhat like what we saw play out in 2020 and 2021 but perhaps they can address the length of the competition and look to including some more local teams. I just don’t see how a possible Waratahs v Sunwolves/Hawaii team is going to be justified financially when you can’t get enough people watching Waratahs v Reds.

Agree jc. I sometimes wonder if it’s a skills issue at the lowest level or a reflection that senior players are just not getting enough elite level training and basic skills development prior to being thrust into the top level. I’m not watching schools or junior rugby to know.

Maybe we haven’t yet seen our Tony yet Rob? Or maybe it’s Phil Kearns? Mosman sure would have it’s fair share of entertainment venues a la Satriale’s and The Bing!

Cheers Harry. Encouragingly for me, the difference with this generation of administrators (as opposed to previous ones) is that they have experiences that straddle both the amateur and professional existence and in some cases, have developed their IP overseas. Added to that, they all tasted success at some point in time during their respective careers. Surely this makes them a unique group of people to navigate the next cycle.