The Reds have had the measure of the Brumbies in recent years but injuries have hit at a critical juncture. Lacking a Test-hardened No.10 in James O’Connor, they also lost world-class prop Taniela Tupou and slumped to their third straight loss on Friday.
Another stat: leading into round 12, Australian teams had closed the points-scoring gap from an average of almost 20 points to fewer than eight, according to New Zealand broadcaster Sky Sport.
Blow-out scorelines against the Force and Rebels at the weekend will rein that in a bit, but the point still stands. It is only the Rebels who have not been more competitive against New Zealand sides this year.
“The gap has closed across the board,” All Blacks great Jeff Wilson told Sky Sport’s The Breakdown last week. “The Australian teams have come back, and I look at the influence now that Dave Rennie has had in the 18 months that he’s had the job and I see it start to filter through. They are looking more and more like a team that’s got someone over the top of them giving them all the information they needed to know. When he left New Zealand, he’s given Australia an opportunity to close the gap and now everybody – their coaches included over there – have a better understanding of how to beat New Zealand teams.”
Mils Muliaina agreed. “What worries me is, where have we gone? We haven’t changed too much, the gap’s closing, we look really flat and – if I compare it to [an All Blacks] end-of-year tour – we almost look like that,” he said.
Wilson’s and Muliaina’s take discounts the maturation in Australia’s top-level coaches. Thorn and McKellar continue to evolve, Coleman is proving his mettle at Super Rugby level, and all three of these head coaches are backed up by some outstanding assistants.
How this translates to the Wallabies remains to be seen, but Rennie has reason to feel encouraged. Provided Tupou, O’Connor and Harry Johnson-Holmes make it back, the Wallabies will have a competitive 23 against England when Rennie makes his three Giteau Law picks. Australia will never get back to 1999-era depth relative to New Zealand’s or England’s stocks, and it remains the Wallabies’ greatest constraint. But our top young players are three or four years into Super Rugby careers and will continue to improve over the next 12 months.
Mahalia Murphy in the lead up to a try in the Wallaroos’ win against Fiji.Credit:Getty
That’s just the men’s professional game. The great coaching swap that happened last year in the sevens program has resulted in the Australian women climbing back up to the top of the sevens world series, beating New Zealand in the process to claim the Langford Sevens. The Wallaroos, who bore the brunt of COVID-19 funding cuts, beat Fiji last week to get their World Cup preparations off to a good start, and are in line for some much-needed investment in their programs and pathways.
Then there’s the Two Blues, who beat Southern Districts 28-25 to claim a staggering third straight win in the Shute Shield. It is a resurgence that matters as much for the way it has brought Sydney rugby’s disparate power bases together as for the impact it could have in a talent-laden but under-resourced area of the city.
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But perhaps the final push to do away with the pervasive pessimism in Australian rugby will come this week in the form of a simple vote, a day’s flying away in Dublin. On Thursday night the full council of World Rugby is expected to confirm Australia as hosts of the 2027 World Cup and the 2029 women’s World Cup.
Although they are five and seven years away, respectively, the legacy-building will start in earnest. Rugby in this country is starting from a long way back, but some better days are here now.
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Better days: Why Australian rugby’s turning point is here
Source: Philippines Alive
