To save itself Australian rugby need go back to the future - LP 100 - Sp...

 To save itself Australian rugby need go back to the future.

What happened to the Australian conference? Have Australian rugby players in the past decade become inferior to their Kiwi counterparts?

The Australian Super Rugby teams are presently 0-22 against New Zealand sides during the 2017 rugby season. By the end of the season they could well be 0-25.

Maybe they have too many Super Rugby teams today and the talent has been too thin to spread among the franchise. Maybe a franchise - The Force or the Rebels - will consolidate talent and the Aussie team will become competitive again when playing with people from across the ditch.

1991 World Cup-winning Wallaby Tony Daly was contacted for comment, he said that
they’re going straight into the Waratahs from Australian schoolboys… they have no hardness, toughness from playing rugby against seasoned and experienced players.

He also mentioned how, in his day, players would serve their apprenticeship in colts rugby or the lower grades and work their way up to first grade.

Prior to 1995 and professional full-time, all players represented cut off in rugby clubs. Young players are proud of the ability to combine older players and if they can not, they have worked hard to narrow the gap in size, skill and strength until they combine and even surpass them.

Nowadays these rugby ‘kids’ go straight from school to academy teams of the Super Rugby franchises, and where New Zealand has a national rugby championship in which their Super Rugby counterparts take part, Australia does not.

They do have our own National Rugby Championship, and three franchises aligned to Super Rugby teams – the Vikings, Brisbane and Melbourne Rising – use Super Rugby players.

This is great for NRC franchisees, but it does not create competitive level, as other teams, including North Harbor Rays and Greater Sydney Rams, have little access to the Super Rugby players.

Daly coaches sub-district rugby these days and he’s been through the mill and back. Maybe going back to the future is the way forward for Australian rugby to rediscover its glory days.

 May, 2017