On a humid morning in February, Australian Rugby Union boss Bill Pulver took the microphone and made the extraordinary declaration that 2014 was the year of the Waratahs.
Not a ball had been kicked, no one knew which Kurtley Beale would turn up in round one and, though they boasted the best and most expensive playing roster in the country, this was the Waratahs, after all. They hadn't done it before and history said they would not in all likelihood do it this year. But Pulver's statement was about more than just the expectations of one of the country's biggest supporter bases. Implied was that Australian rugby was a sport in need of a fillip. A concrete sign of better days and the fulfilment of its age-old promise.
Pulver went out on a limb at Maroubra surf club that day. Remarkably, it came off. The Waratahs won the damn thing, the crowds came running back and "rugby" – for one golden season – was no longer the code you had to suffer before you could love. That was then. Where is the love now?
Most of the numbers say there is nothing wrong. The Wallabies have scored 51 tries in 19 Tests under Ewen McKenzie, more than double the number they scored in the final 19 games under Robbie Deans. They have clawed their way up from fourth in the world last year to third and can move to second behind the All Blacks with a win against South Africa next week. Along the way they have won seven straight Tests for the first time since 2000 and have lost one since November.
Ratings are up on pay and free-to-air television and crowds are also on the rise. But two recent numbers appear to have killed rugby's buzz dead. The scoreline at Eden Park last month – 51-20 – and the crowd figure at Cbus Stadium on Queensland's Gold Coast, a paltry 14,000 to watch the Wallabies win tough against the Pumas.
Fairfax Media asked five stakeholders for their take on the big challenges facing the game they play in heaven, why the Wallabies seem so vulnerable all of a sudden and what can be done to right the good ship rugby in these parts.
The former coach
"I don't think we're that far off," says Rod Macqueen, one of only two Wallabies coaches to win a World Cup. "The biggest thing Ewen has to come to grips with as soon as possible is his side, understanding what that's going to be, so they can spend more time together. As soon as he and the selectors can agree that they have the right mix, you can start building on the way they're going to play."
Macqueen's Wallabies may have ruined it for everyone. A core side including John Eales, George Gregan, Stephen Larkham, Tim Horan and Toutai Kefu, to name a few, held every championship trophy including the World Cup, Bledisloe Cup, Tri Nations Trophy, Tom Richards Trophy, as well as an 81 per cent winning ratio.
Macqueen didn't have to fret about running rugby, or the lure of the euro and the yen. The All Blacks were a great side back then but their famed aura was also in its infancy.
"You have to be realistic about [New Zealand]," he says. "The All Blacks right now are on a high and we are still coming to grips with things under Ewen, but that is only a matter of time. It's also important to remember that the All Blacks are going to have to peak for the World Cup. Right now they're the best team in the world but if you look at 2003, when England won, they [New Zealand] peaked the year before and weren't as good a team in the year that mattered."
The endless chatter – from the ARU – about running rugby leaves Macqueen cold. "I hear 'running rugby' but I think it's intelligent rugby they need, and a side that takes advantage of its opportunities when they come," he says.
The player
Will Genia would play one team every Saturday if he could. He believes they are the only side against which he and his teammates are judged. "The Wallabies have the problem where they will always be gauged against the All Blacks, because there's always that tradition and history and competition," Genia says. "When you're getting gauged against one of the greatest teams to ever play, it's going to be hard. You see the brand of rugby they play, it's always expansive, it's always so effective and precise. What people have to understand is, you look at the next best nations in the world and, barring that loss to England, we've beat every single one of them. We've only lost one game in the last 11 and the boys are doing a great job."
There is also the great truism of Australian sport at play. It is a buyer's market. A five-minute period of scrum resets followed by a short-arm penalty to decide a Test match, which is what went down on the Gold Coast last week, is not winning hearts and minds. "One thing the fans get frustrated by a little bit is that sometimes the team lacks consistency – we go through periods in our games when there are lulls," Genia says. "When you're watching Souths on the weekend, scoring 40-odd points [against Manly in the NRL], it's going to be tough. You have to find the balance between winning and winning in a manner that pleases fans. At the end of the day it is the entertainment business."
The legend
Test fullback-turned-commentator Matt Burke believes the cracks appeared when McKenzie selected Kurtley Beale at No.10 for the first Bledisloe Test. Not because it was a bad selection per se, but because it knocked the fan base for six. "They put 30 points on the French [in Brisbane] with Bernard Foley dominating at No.10, then Will Skelton shone in Sydney, and people thought after the Waratahs success that this was going to be the Wallabies' time to shine," Burke says. "Then all of a sudden everything deflated when the selection came through. Beale was a curve ball, and the burden on him to control that team was way too much. Everyone had seen this great combination [at NSW] and it wasn't being used on the park despite the limited time they had to prepare for those Test matches. All of a sudden our best preparation in years and the advantage of a home game were thrown out the window. They were trying to reinvent the wheel and be too smart."
A barely existent marketing budget within the ARU has hit the game hard this year, but Burke says it is inexcusable to run up the white flag at a time when the NRL and AFL are pouring cash into their finals series. "Unfortunately in the lead up to the Argentina Test we had mates asking where they were playing," he says.
The administrator
Bill Pulver got his trophy in the end, but is he winning the war? These days the battle for the Bledisloe Cup is over as soon as it's begun. This year's 12-12 draw kept the Super Rugby momentum going for an extra week but by the time the All Blacks scored their second try at Eden Park you could hear the wind rushing from Australian rugby's sails.
"Your year is either off to a flying start or a dreadful start and if you lose back-to-back games it's then hard," Pulver says. "There is a case to be made that rotating those games between the All Blacks, South Africa and Argentina would make more sense. That may be something we look at in the future."
Pulver rejects the notion that something is wrong with rugby or that the Wallabies are on the nose, pointing to [overall] climbing crowd figures and television ratings. "I think what has thrown everyone a little is that outcome at Eden Park," he says. "The truth is we got beaten pretty badly – in some ways the score of 51-20 probably flattered us – but you have to balance that out with the fact this team has lost one game in its last 11 and it is a very young team, with an average age of 25. We are operating in the world's most competitive winter sports market. No other country has AFL, which is a massive, well-run, well-funded enterprise. No one else has an NRL like we have. Soccer is clearly a global sport. For Australia to still be ranked No.3 [in rugby] with a chance to go to No.2, I think you could argue we punch well above our weight despite all of those market forces. We do measure ourselves against the New Zealanders, we want to continue to do that, and the truth is Australian rugby fans won't be happy until we beat them regularly."
The fan
Matt McGoldrick is at the helm of a recently formed supporters group the Gold Brigade. "We're not fair-weather fans," the group's Facebook page declares. "Born out of a desire to support our Wallabies win, loose [sic] or fall", even McGoldrick wonders why life's so hard for his beloved gold jerseys at the moment.
"Soccer is an interesting game to me," McGoldrick says. "I was watching the Wanderers the other day in an absolutely awful game [they drew 0-0 with FC Seoul in the Asian Champions League this week] and people were saying it was a great result, a gritty performance, but they got it done. If the Wallabies were 'gritty and got it done' people would tear the game to shreds. Rugby league is so happy to kick rugby as well. A bad game in rugby league is swept under the carpet but one game in rugby paints the whole code as bad."
Allegiance is an affliction for McGoldrick. He goes to every Bledisloe Cup Test in Australia, which means it's been 12 years since he's driven away from ANZ Stadium a happy man. While the "fair-weathers" might be done with the Wallabies until Steve Hansen breaks a window in a coaches' box one day, McGoldrick and the Gold Brigade will keep on keeping on. But how many others will? "I still go for the one time it will happen," he says. "I love them, I always have and I always will. But at some point people like me turn away, I suppose. You just hope they don't."
