Wallabies must drop obsession with peaking once every four years
Adam Freier October 23, 2011
'Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!" That's what you all heard from Eden Park last Sunday, and even on Friday night. But what I heard was thousands of TVs across Australia turning off, for another four more years.
Now every nation bar the victor tonight will look to make wholesale changes, give youth a run, and try, test and pass new combinations. Heads will roll. Welcome to the matrix of rugby - the life in between the World Cups. My issue with losing at the tournament is the notion that we now have four more years to work towards winning the next one. That needs to change.
Internationally, there is no appetite to be the best-ranked nation. Who even takes notice of the IRB world rankings? They're not celebrated or rejoiced in. This is a problem, and a reason the Wallabies will come home baked in bronze. I sense dissatisfaction with the Wallabies' performance among the Australian rugby public and I witnessed it in the papers and first-hand as a punter. The reality is, we didn't enter the World Cup as the best team in the world, so it should be no shock we don't leave as the best.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Usain Bolt doesn't run second and third and drop a few races before he takes gold at the Olympics. He wins consistently. He takes down rivals on any stage. The Olympics is just a magnified platform to show the world he is the best. That's what makes him a champion.
The Australian rugby team needs to adopt that mentality. I think the result wouldn't be a surprise. The World Cup is certainly the showpiece event, but we put way too much emphasis on it to produce a world champion side and don't focus on the games in between. This creates a cycle of depleted teams on trial for a four-year formula.
We rest players, we groom players, we send squads with a ''development focus''. When did a Test not carry the weight of a nation? If we start to prevent nations from touring with second-string sides or issuing 14 doctor's certificates at a SANZAR conference the week before the Tri Nations of a World Cup year, then we can seriously consider a ranking system that accurately portrays the world's best.
We need to bring in an accurate ranking system. The current IRB model is flawed. As it stands, if France beat the All Blacks by 15 in the final they will be the No.1 nation. What? Didn't they lose to Tonga and get pasted by New Zealand in the pool games? If Wales had beaten Australia by 15 points, they would have been second in the IRB rankings - which is fair - but they didn't and now find themselves ranked eighth, behind Argentina. If this World Cup finishes with Wales the eighth-best team in the world and France first, then not only will I eat my words, I'll eat my laptop!
In the meantime, if we look at the measures of who is world champion, it has nothing to do with rankings - it's about beating the best. And in rugby that means beating the All Blacks.
The Wallabies must win at all costs, win everything. Don't field a second-string side against Samoa, or Scotland. March into every battle with the view of being the best team on the planet. Then you hit a World Cup, like Usain, like the All Blacks, and prove you are the best.
So the question is being asked: is this golden crop of Wallabies the real deal or fool's gold. Make no mistake, the Wallabies are a talented young group who can achieve great things. But a World Cup is the last thing they should be looking at. Try this: 10 wins in a row against the best in the world. That's what New Zealand did to us, that's what we should be aiming to do to them. Beating them twice in our past four clashes is a start, but that needs to change now - not in "four more years".
Reduce the importance of the World Cup as a gauge of international status and you will see rugby grow. Bringing international fixtures back to what they truly are - Test matches. New Zealand will win this World Cup, not only because they are the best team in the tournament, but because they have been the best team over the past four years. That's why they will win and that's what makes them champions.
