Beware NZ: Advance Australia — with a fair suck of the sav

be trusted to lie down and take a beating.

Not once in the last 20 years has anyone looked across the Tasman at the declining force of the Reds and Waratahs, the inconsistency of the Wallabies and the horror show at the Rebels and felt that sinking fear of being left behind: that pang of envy combined with admiration that was once the only way to feel about the Australians as they so cleverly and resiliently making not much go so far.

But the prospect of that all changing is high now that Australia has been confirmed as the hosts of the 2027 and 2029

World Cups.

The British and Irish Lions will also tour there in 2025.

The balance of power in Australasian rugby may have shifted and New Zealand’s dominance in the transtasman rivalry ended.

Australia now have the path to recovery and the means to break free from the clouded thinking and high-performance malaise that has forced them to relish victories against Scotland way more than they should have these last 20 years.

The three events they are going to host are more than a Band-Aid being stuck on a gaping wound.

These are serious fixes to serious problems because all three will not only flood the game with enough money to fill the hole in Rugby Australia’s balance sheet, they’ll also ignite a nationalistic fervour that will draw people to the sport as participants and fans.

Big events galvanise the Australians in a way they don’t other nations.

Look how the country united behind the 2000 Olympics.

The big stage with the world watching is where Australians want to be.

The next seven years present

Australia with an almost unprecedented opportunity to reconnect with their indefatigable spirit and grow rugby’s standing.

Although it’s unlikely they will usurp either league or AFL as the premier codes, they could blast past New Zealand as a rugby power.

It may seem an almost deranged notion to be touting hopeless old Australia as the All Blacks’ most likely future nemesis but there is precedent here on which to hang this bold, dystopian claim.

Australia’s last great era was built on the twin hosting rights of the Lions and World Cup.

The Wallabies were losing momentum after their 1991 triumph, but they were granted hosting rights to the 2003 World Cup in 1997 and reclaimed the Bledisloe the following year. New heroes emerged, their game evolved and they won the 1999 World Cup three years after slumping to a record defeat to the All Blacks in Wellington.

The Lions were beaten in 2001 and the same year the Brumbies won their first Super Rugby title. It was all Australia back then. They had the money, the population, the economic horsepower and the ability to find ways to keep beating the All Blacks, no defeat being more painful than the one the Wallabies inflicted in the semifinal of the 2003 World Cup.

If there was a moment that confirmed they were the superior Australasian rugby force, it was that 22-10 victory in Sydney, for they had outsmarted New Zealand to win the hosting rights to that tournament and then outsmarted them again on the field.

Australia were once great and they can be again now that World Rugby has handed them the keys to the Ferrari.