Cocky Aussies face ABs backlash
OPINION: Australian rugby stands on the brink of tumbling into a dark abyss of irrelevance and indifference. It goes without saying the All Blacks are not the team you want to be playing in front of that sort of bleak backdrop.
But that is exactly the confluence of events in Australian rugby this week. With the game in turmoil and open revolt, with the big chief having fallen on his sword, his successor yet to grasp the poisoned chalice, with attendances and TV ratings plunging like a Kardashian’s neckline, and the credibility of the game stretched to snapping point, Steve Hansen’s men will sashay into Sydney for Bledisloe I against a Wallabies side they’ve lost to just once in the last 16 test matches.
You would have more hope campaigning for Metiria Turei as the beacon of honesty than you would making a case for the Wallabies getting one hand on the trophy next Saturday.
Remarkably, there has been a defiant optimism and peculiar confidence emanating from the Wallabies camp over the last week.
A first-up Bledisloe like this used to sell out in hours, if not minutes, in the good old days when John Eales, George Gregan and co used to give as good as they took.
Not now. Australia’s woeful Super Rugby record over recent years, a similar plunge by the Wallabies in 2016, some damaging infighting, indifferent leadership and no discernible solutions coming in the form of talent development and retention have left the Australian rugby bandwagon bereft of passengers.
Which brings us to this week. Bill Pulver has resigned as ARU boss. The Force have been axed. Legal actions hover. And Australian players who managed not a single victory over a Kiwi opponent throughout the entirety of Super Rugby are charged with lowering the mighty All Blacks.
It has been hard to know whether to roll the eyes, or widen them in anticipation, over some of the rhetoric coming out of the Australian camp.
They see weaknesses. If the Lions did it, so can they. They are fitter, faster and stronger than they have ever been. The All Blacks are on the decline. This is their time. Maybe. But highly doubtful. The All Blacks will be back to full strength, even if Owen Franks has to be nursed through his Achilles tendon issues. Dane Coles, Ben Smith, Sonny Bill Williams, Ryan Crotty and Rieko Ioane, who all missed the latter part of the Lions series, will return, making this a far more dangerous New Zealand side than that which limped home against Warren Gatland’s men.
Coles, especially, will bring a different dimension, with his mixture of the efficient (lineout throwing) and the ebullient (running into gaps and popping passes like a midfield back) simply unmatched in the modern game.
They have also had their pride rather pricked. Back-to-back home tests without victory? That’s the closest the All Blacks have come to a crisis since 2009’s three straight defeats to the Springboks.
You get the feeling that they might just be ready to take their frustrations out on a few cocky Australians who might be wise not to puff their chests out too much over the next seven days.
Remember last time these two teams met? Some simmering discontent raised its head post-game in Auckland when Michael Cheika unloaded at my question about whether they would congratulate the All Blacks for