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By Jake White for Rugby Pass
The narrative, understandably, emanating out of last weekend’s 33-5 drubbing by the Boks, has been about how good Rassie’s men were, but I want to flip it and ask, how have the Wallabies fallen so far?
Just think, in 1984, the ‘Grand Slam’ Wallabies came over to the United Kingdom and rolled over England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, playing a wondrously inventive style of play under Alan Jones, a schoolteacher. He empowered visionaries like Mark and Glen Ella, Michael Lynagh and David Campese to express themselves. They were the first touring side ever to do it and they converted a new generation of Australian rugby fans.
Like the All Blacks in recent years, everybody sought to replicate their style of play. What happened next? From that template, they went on to win two World Cups in 1991 and 1999, and only lost a final in 2003 in extra-time. They fielded Wallabies I would bracket as ‘great’ such as Joe Roff, George Gregan, Stirling Mortlock, Matty Burke and Stephen Larkham. It was a halcyon era for Australian rugby.
When I was watching the game in Brisbane, it took me back to when I coached at the Brumbies, back in 2012. I remember going from franchise to franchise trying to recruit players. This was years after they’d been double Super Rugby champions and finalists. We found players in Brisbane. We found players in club rugby, down in Sydney and put together a team. When I started, we had Stephen Moore and Ben Alexander, and when I left, we had 18 Wallabies. We added guys like Jesse Mogg, Matt Toomua, Christian Leliafano, Scott Fardy, Nic White and Sam Carter. It was the nucleus of the international side.
At that time, the ARU (Australian Rugby Union), tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to coach the Wallabies. It was during the Lions tour of Australia in 2013. Obviously, I was very excited and presented to the board, but I lost out and didn’t get the job. I remember bumping into Robbie Deans in Japan afterwards and I said, ‘jeez, I was a bit disappointed I didn’t get the Wallabies gig’, and his words to me were prescient, ‘Jake, you’ve dodged a bullet’.
You see, if you look at where they are today, it’s not because of what happened last week, last month or last year, it is because of the decisions made a decade, even two decades ago. They closed their academies. Why? I can’t fathom it. Australia is a sports-mad country – you look at the recent Olympics, for a country of 25 million, their gold medal haul was phenomenal. There were world leaders in high performance at the Institute of Sport.
Indeed, when I worked in Canberra, they had the edge on everything when it came to sharing intellectual property. They would talk to people about recovery, injury prevention, netball coaches would come in and uplevel ball handling skills, they’d speak to other sports about how to acquire skill acquisition drills but then they closed off the success funnel that was running freely. The system that brought through the Pococks, the Genias, the Coopers. Those boys came through Academies where they got top-of-the-range S&C coaches.
Australian Rugby thought they could survive without it but Australian rugby has never been weaker. They’ve never been ranked so lowly since the game went pro and the game is in disarray. The ARU have just taken over the Brumbies. They’ve decommissioned the Rebels and reintroduced the Force, which they threw out about four years ago. The Waratahs, who were previous Super Rugby Champions, have underperformed. It is a mess and has been a shambles for a long time. Having been part of that system, I see the folly of their decisions.
Out in Perth this weekend, I don’t know where they’re going to find players to overturn the Boks. They’ve lost two of their locks, Nick Frost and Jeremy Williams to concussion and Filipo Daugunu to a broken leg, and they’re scrambling to put a squad together. It’s all gloom and doom. It shows you how far they’ve regressed.
So many areas of the supply chain are currently broken, even at Youth Level they’re struggling. At the recent U20 Championship they lost to Argentina and Italy. In years gone by, that would have been unheard of for double-World Champions. Even with limited player resources, those unions are starting to get it right, as witnessed by the former’s win over New Zealand and the latter’s wins over Wales and Scotland at senior level this year.
In the background, there is an almost visceral fear about a humiliation against the Lions next year. I feel for Joe Schmidt because the problems run so much deeper than the players on the field. I heard someone say, ‘you only need 23 good players’ but honestly, you need far more depth given how physical the game now is. If things follow on the same trajectory, it could be cataclysmic by the time they host the World Cup. It is the biggest hole Australian rugby has ever been in and things need to change quickly.
They don’t need a superstar like Antoine Dupont, they need to revert to what used to work. There are still smart people who love rugby there. Their point of difference was always their cerebral approach to the game. They put funding and expertise behind the athletes. They learnt from other sporting codes. I remember them talking about how you get the edge on the opposition in changing your sleeping patterns, how to travel better, all these one percenters.
Now they’ve just disinvested in rugby and are reaping what they’ve sown. They’ve even let players slip through the gaps, like Mack Hansen with Ireland, Sione Tuipolotu and Jack Dempsey with Scotland. Young Archie Griffin with Wales. Their playing numbers have fallen off a cliff. Even when I was there, they had to send players back to Sydney because there weren’t enough clubs in Melbourne. That was a warning sign and anyone could tell you that model wasn’t going to be sustainable.
In Australia, because the Olympic programme is so strong, when you have someone who is tall with ball skills, he goes to AFL, NRL or basketball. If he doesn’t have hand-eye coordination he’ll go to rowing or swimming. That’s how they take the best athletes out of the system. Rugby have been naïve in thinking that they will always have the numbers. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg. They had the talent ID, the academies, the high-performance edge and produced winners. Right now, they don’t play an identifiable style. When they played against Wales this summer, I couldn’t pick out the style they were trying to play. Wales, who are also in a hole, just made more mistakes.
In fairness to Rassie Erasmus, when he came back from Ireland he brought back the best bits of their system. Like Wales and Australia, Ireland don’t have an abundance of players, and they have other codes like hurling and Gaelic Football competing for talent, but they had a hugely advanced system called the EPD (elite player development system) and it’s what we do in South Africa.
From Craven Week at U13 level, gifted boys are entered into the database and can be tracked from 12 years old until they are senior professionals. You know, which club he’s at, what height and weight he is, what point of difference he has. We can tell you everything. With the EPD, I can tell you the best young player at Craven Week, I can tell you who the best U20 player is this year. The opposite is true in Australia.
Joe Schmidt has that mindset and attention to detail but he’s starting behind the eight ball right now. They are going to have to make some tough decisions and find some investment from somewhere. It’s not just about the 2027 World Cup, it’s about saving the game for the next generation. I know the Springboks are fielding an ageing side – there were 14 players out of 23 over 30 last weekend – but they know who are filling the spots in the years to come.
I’m not saying South African rugby is perfect. We came seventh at this year’s U20 World Championship, which is a warning and haven’t won that tournament since 2012 but we do invest in our age-grade game – SuperSport regularly broadcast SA schoolboy rugby, inspiring the next generation.
Australian Rugby has to refind its magic ingredients to produce the next ‘class of 1984’, before it’s too late.
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