Face it and embrace it — Australia is an important partner
There’s a short-term embarrassment to be endured that Dave Rennie was so easily snaffled by the Wallabies after New Zealand Rugby made such a big play to have all the best Kiwis apply for the All Blacks coaching role.
Longer-term, however, Rennie’s appointment as Wallabies coach may prove to be what the All Blacks need.
NZR has grand visions of the All Blacks being global crusaders — travelling to far-flung corners to play Six Nations heavyweights and emerging superpowers for vast sums of cash.
They no doubt see more tests against Japan and the USA as part of their future — partly to spread the rugby gospel but really because these economic superpowers are potential gold mines if the game can truly spread there.
But all this jetsetting and big thinking has to be underpinned by something and that is Australia.
As much as NZ Rugby wants to roam the world with the All Blacks, the real business of sustaining them as a world class proposition on and off the field is conducted much closer to home.
NZR may not like the fact that the strength of the All Blacks, and indeed New Zealand rugby, is inextricably linked to the comparative strength of the Wallabies and Australian rugby, but it’s an inconvenient truth they have to embrace.
In the last 12 years, the All Blacks have played the Wallabies 39 times — a figure which comprises almost one quarter of all the tests they have played in that period.
By comparison, they played England 13 times in that same period and Ireland 12 times.
Even South Africa, who are cited as the All Blacks oldest and truest rival, feature nowhere near as often as the Wallabies in the test schedule.
The All Blacks played the Boks 27 times between 2008 and 2019 and there is no getting away from the fact Australia wield real power in New Zealand rugby.
The Wallabies are always going to form a significant component of the All Blacks’ playing schedule.
No matter how the set-up of the world game evolves, the Bledisloe Cup is going to remain a vital part of New Zealand’s calendar and there are three tests already locked in for next year with the opener heading to Melbourne for the first time since 2010.
These tests are financially sustainable. When New Zealand hosts two Bledisloe tests in a calendar year they pocket an estimated $6 million in the process.
The Wallabies may have been the drunken uncle at the wedding for the last decade, but they still drive an audience. And across the Tasman stadiums are rarely sold out for tests but the All Blacks at least ensure the number of empty seats is less than it normally is.
In Perth this year the 60,000-seat stadium was full for Bledisloe I and there is some confidence across the Tasman that despite the general doom and gloom hovering over the sport, tests in Melbourne and Brisbane will sell out.
So everyone has to face it and embrace it — Australia Rugby is New Zealand Rugby’s most important strategic partner.
The Wallabies are the All Blacks’ most important rival and the stronger they become, the better it will be for both nations.
Of those 39 tests played since 2008, the All Blacks won 30 and there were two draws. But those numbers don’t reveal the true dominance enjoyed by New Zealand.
It wasn’t just that they won 82 per cent of the tests, the All Blacks rarely came under genuine pressure to retain the cup.
Only three times in that period — 2011, 2015 and 2019 — did the All Blacks have to win the last test of the series to keep the Bledisloe. And, of course, these were World Cup years when they partly had their eye on the bigger picture and the series was truncated to two games.
Too often the All Blacks had it too easy. There were occasional tight, gripping games such as the epic encounters in Brisbane 2008 and 2014 as well as Dunedin in 2017, but the average score across the period was 30-18 which fairly accurately reflects the gap between the two.
The Bledisloe has survived, rather than thrived, in the last 12 years and to do the latter, it needs a step change in the Wallabies.
The intensity has to be rebuilt and the battles need a level of consistency that has escaped them since 2008.
Cue Rennie — a campaign coach. The Wallabies need his steady hand and ability to ensure standards don’t drop.
His impact may not be felt immediately such is the dire state of things in Australia, but it will be.
He has the potential to return the Wallabies to being somewhere close to their true selves and to force the All Blacks to lift their game and innovate to keep winning.
NZR’s giant mistake in leaving their All Blacks coaching appointment so late may turn out in time to be an inadvertent tactical masterstroke.