Wallabies face up to annual All Blacks examination with new reason for hope

Bledisloe Cup week: New Zealanders still relish it, Australians have come to dread it. For Wallabies fans, it’s an annual examination akin to a dentist or doctors consult, a mostly shameful ordeal in which they’re painfully probed and sent away to do better. “Tsk, tsk,” they seem to say year after year. “Might be time to make some changes.”

After achieving the ignominy of 21 consecutive Bledisloe Cup series losses last season, Australia have made changes. In a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” move, they hired two New Zealanders, coach Joe Schmidt and scrum guru Mike Cron, to snap the seven-Test losing streak that began after the Wallabies’ last win in Brisbane back in 2020.

It’s been a torrid 10 weeks and seven Tests for the Schmidt era. In July his side were twice flattered by Wales then tested by Georgia, but did enough to win all three Tests. In August they copped consecutive canings by the world champion South Africans, but they climbed off the canvas with a last-gasp 20-19 win over Argentina in La Plata.

That season-high got even better when they led Los Pumas 20-3 inside 30 minutes at Santa Fe, but mutated into an all-time low in the final 30 when they yielded 50 points. The 67-27 defeat was a 125-year low and a shattering loss after such a bright start. Now, having hit rock bottom, they must rebound against old enemy the All Blacks.

There is more at stake than mere silverware and Trans-Tasman bragging rights too. The AFL finals are in full swing and a Sydney-Brisbane grand final is still possible. If North Queensland continue their charge in the NRL finals against the Sydney sides, rugby union’s waning popularity will be under siege in both of its traditional heartlands.

Most reckon the Wallabies have two chances this Saturday: “Buckley’s and none”. This most Australian of phrases traditionally conveys a state beyond hopelessness but closer inspection shows convict William Buckley, who escaped in 1803 and was given up for dead, actually defied the grim predictions to survive 30 years in the wild.

Like Buckley, who was rescued and adopted by the Wallarranga, the Wallabies have learned new ways to think, hunt and prosper under rugby elders Schmidt and Cron. Until the late cataclysm in Santa Fe, Australia was excellent in both Tests against Los Pumas, with ascendancy at the scrum and lineout and growing innovation in their backline.

Which is to ask if this year’s Bledisloe Cup’s cause is really as hopeless as it seems. Schmidt is urging his squad to focus on three great Pumas halves, not a woeful one. Their two best players in 2024 – flanker Fraser McReight and centre Hunter Paisami – are back and their 4-3 win-loss record this year is, for once, equal to New Zealand’s.

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The All Blacks suffered a rare home loss to Argentina five weeks ago and are still stinging from twin defeats from the Springboks by six and four points (Australia’s losses were by 27 and 18). New Zealand remain world No 3 and Australia No 9 but All Blacks coach Scott Robertson’s young side is far from the ruthless force their forebears were.

Not so the New Zealand press corp. Winning at 25% in the Rugby Championship is unacceptable, nay unthinkable, for the All Blacks and Robertson is under pressure. Assistant coach Leon MacDonald walked out on him three weeks ago after five Tests in the job. Losing to Australia, who enter this Sydney Test as heavy underdogs, would be disastrous.

Trans-Tasman rugby has bigger issues. Both unions are in debt and disconnected from their grassroots, and South Africa’s withdrawal from Super Rugby has weakened our playing standards and strengthened theirs. All while NRL is booming, branching into new territories and attracting bigger dollars from sponsors and broadcasters.

Two decades of Wallabies decline has diminished the Bledisloe as a pinnacle series and neither this Test or the return bout in Wellington on 28 September have yet sold out. New Zealand feels sorry for Australia and no longer considers them a credible threat. Sad as that is, here is something crazier: world rugby needs Australia to win too.

Odds are it won’t happen. But no one gave Buckley a chance either. When he did re-emerge at Port Phillip 32 years later, wearing kangaroo skins over his slave tattoo “WB”, he was no longer the soldier who had fought Napoleon’s forces or the “receiver of stolen goods”. He was Murrangurk – “one who was killed but brought back to life”.

If the sleeping giant of Australian rugby is to be brought back to life, now is the time. They have two inside men leading them in Schmidt, an All Blacks assistant at the 2023 World Cup, and Cron, New Zealand’s scrum coach from 2004-19. With 16 new Wallabies capped already in 2024, Generation Next is ready for its Bledisloe baptism.