Family culture key to reversal of fortunes
Australian rugby was in the doldrums until a revolution triggered by Rod Macqueen inspired a golden generation in green and gold, writes Daniel Schofield
Earlier this year, Australia’s 1999 World Cup-winning team gathered for a reunion that ended up lasting more than two days. Before things got out of hand, everyone present – from the captain, John Eales, to the coach, Rod Macqueen, and even the bag man – gave an individual speech about what that journey had meant to them.
“Some of it was emotional, some of it was funny stories,” Joe Roff, the wing, told The Daily
Telegraph. “That six-week journey that is a World Cup campaign is the most bonding experience a rugby team could have. It holds people together for the rest of their lives. You don’t realise that until a few years have passed. With hindsight it is clear.”
To understand how those bonds were forged, and how Australia became the first team to win two World Cups, you have to go back to when Macqueen was appointed as head coach in 1997. Australian rugby was at a low ebb when Macqueen arrived, having lost to England in the quarterfinals of the 1995 World Cup and subsequently finished bottom of the 1996 and 1997 Tri Nations.
At the dawn of professionalism, Macqueen instantly focused on making sure the Wallabies were ahead of the curve by tapping into his contacts with Australia’s rugby league and Australian Rules teams. The Wallabies were among the first teams to employ video and data analysis, while he borrowed heavily from rugby league’s tactical approach. John Muggleton, a former Australia rugby league international, was appointed as defence coach.
“Whether that gave us an edge in terms of the defence itself or structures is questionable,” Roff said. “What it did give us was a psychological edge that we felt we were doing things professionally and focusing on what we were doing as a result, rather than focusing on any external pressure.”
Macqueen’s real masterstroke,
according to Roff, was the manner in which he built team unity and culture by moving all the players and their families together into a camp in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast 18 months out from the World Cup. “We all committed to this period of being part of each other’s lives,” Roff said. “It was deliberately isolated and distraction free. We ate together, trained together and lived together as a family, not just players. You might call it a compound but psychologically it got us away from all the bells and whistles that go with rugby. That started a family culture. The momentum was built by having some victories in the Tri Nations and other key matches but always retreating to our family unit, which was us all living together.”
Australia’s results were instantly transformed. In 1998, they beat New Zealand home and away and thrashed England 76-0. It helped that Macqueen could call upon a golden generation in green and gold, from the imperious Tim Horan to the zip of George Gregan at scrum-half and the leadership of Eales as captain. Macqueen also shifted Stephen Larkham from full-back to fly-half, which proved to be an inspired move.
The Wallabies breezed through the pool stages, dispatching Romania 57-9, Ireland 23-3 and the United States 55-19 in what proved to be the only match of the tournament in which they conceded a try. With the 1999 World Cup operating a quarterfinal play-off system, the Wallabies had nine days to kill in Ireland until their last-eight match against Wales.
One morning the squad boarded the bus for what they assumed would be another training session only for Macqueen to stop the bus, telling everyone to get off. “He said, ‘I’ll see you in three days’ time,’” Roff said. “The team really needed a break and it was a sense of relief, but it was quite courageous of the coach to give a group of rugby guys three days off in Limerick with nothing to do. I assure you, we made the most of it. We had the most fantastic time. It gave us that pressurerelease we needed to really focus on the last three weeks of that tournament.” Suitably refreshed, Australia comfortably beat Wales 24-9 in Cardiff to set up a semi-final against South Africa, the defending champions, at Twickenham. What followed was one of the tightest, tensest World Cup matches ever to be played. “It feels wrong to say this as a winger when no tries were scored but it was the most exhilarating game,” Roff said. Matt Burke and Jannie de Beer, England’s conqueror in the quarter-final, exchanged kick for kick to leave the score at 18-18 after 80 minutes.
“It is the mark of teams that play together and understand each other well that there’s a calmness at those critical times,” Roff said. “At those moments, it is not about any form of inspiration or motivation but it is about going into yourself as a team and really believing in the process and what you are trying to do as a team. That was very much what was happening. There were no words or tactics spoken. It was simply a sense that we needed to play our way.”
In extra time, De Beer struck South Africa ahead with a penalty, only for Burke to bring Australia level once more. The stalemate continued until Larkham took matters into his own hands. Receiving the ball just inside the South African half and without steadying himself, Larkham landed an outrageous dropped goal, the first of his Test career. Burke added a penalty to confirm the Wallabies’ passage to the final. “I still give Steve Larkham a hard time that he has only ever kicked one field goal, but my goodness it was an important one,” Roff said.
The squad gathered the next day to watch the New Zealand v France semi-final assuming they would be scouting the All Blacks. Instead a Christophe Lamaison-inspired les Bleus stunned New Zealand 43-31. “The back-office team had done all their analysis purely on New Zealand,” Roff said. “They had not given France a second thought. It was quite simply one of the most amazing games of rugby we had ever seen. We couldn’t believe it. We were sitting there watching it as a team and I won’t dress this up, we were going crazy for France.
“I remember watching France at the end doing a lap of honour and from my perspective that’s a really good thing if they think they can do a victory lap. The elation they were feeling was the elation I wanted to feel a week later.”
Despite the lopsided 35-12 scoreline, the final was similarly tense, with Australia grinding out a lead through the boot of Burke before tries from Ben Tune and Owen Finegan made the game safe. “It was a classic final where penalty kicks were decisive,” Roff said. “Like a lot of finals, there are only a couple of opportunities and it is all about building and maintaining pressure until that one opportunity comes along.
“It was not something that came together over the course of the World Cup. It started a long time before in that two-year period in which we essentially moved in together. For us we had a very settled squad which built selfbelief between each other. That was the glue that helped us go through the campaign.”
‘That six-week journey is the most bonding experience a team could have’
‘It was courageous to give a group of rugby guys three days off in Limerick’