As a New Zealander who is old enough to remember that golden era Australia enjoyed, especially between 1998-2003, it's sad seeing how far they have fallen. Rugby Union in Australia has always struggled to compete with the NRL and AFL in terms of viewership levels and player numbers and simply won't ever compete with those two sports. They can co-exist with them however. Their main problems lie elsewhere. There simply isn't enough being done to nurture and grow the grassroots level of the game. They lack a provincial competition between club and Super Rugby/URC level like New Zealand and South Africa have with the NPC and Currie Cup respectively. Super Rugby when it expanded to use geographical conferences was partly done to extend the length of the season and compensate for this lack of a feeder competition in Australia. Eddie Jones allegedly stipulated in his contact for his second stint as Wallabies coach that Rugby Australia invest more in the grassroots but he found himself being stonewalled, so he quit the job but in the process badly harmed his own reputation. The way the conferences were set up in Super Rugby also had a negative impact on their game. They were allowed to play half their games against each other with the conference winner gaining an automatic home playoff spot. This led to a drop in standards even though the Reds and Waratahs won a title each in the early years of this setup. It reached its peak level of insanity in 2017 when the Brumbies were awarded a home quarter final as the Australian Conference winner despite having fewer competition points than all five NZ teams. That year saw the Western Force cut from the competition at the end of it. These issues ultimately stem from the boardroom in Rugby Australia. They seem to keep making bad decisions and aren't generating enough revenue. They even forced NZR to give them some of their own broadcast revenue to keep them in SR Pacific. They also cut the Melbourne Rebels who were in serious debt and refused to accept the club's attempts to get themselves back in a good financial state. This has resulted in legal action being taken with both sides suing each other. It coiuld get messy. Joe Scmidt has an extremely difficult job on his hands getting his team ready for the British and Irish Lions tour in 2025 and the World Cup in Australia in 2027.
@@noelburland7169 thank you for taking the time to share. A massive weight on the shoulders of Joe Schmidt. Let's see if clear action is taken in the next couple of years to get Aus back to where they belong 🙌🏼🇦🇺
I’m a New Zealander who grew up playing rugby and used to watch it. and couldn’t give a stuff either way about Australian rugby. No I don’t hate them, but I’m not sad. They brought it upon themselves with their useless narrow-minded and alienated management. They were in the box seat to cement themselves as a major sport in their country 25 years ago and they blew it through idiotic management decisions, And let’s not forget how they stabbed NZ rugby in the back over dropping our country as co-hosts for the 2023 World Cup, conveniently forgetting how we helped peope their rugby up back in the 1970s and early 1980s. No sympathy deserved nor given. They made their own bed and shat in it on this one.
i agree with all of the above especially Rugby Aust have been appalling in their leadership and counter suing Melb Rebels in mind shows it continues - and the treatment of Carter Gordon ABSOLUTELY APPALING no surprise he went to League all they had to say is we won't leave you hanging like rugby did - i mean Carter only had to look at the treatment of Quade and Michael Hooper - Quade should have been there in the last RWC as a player and a mentor to Carter - i love rugby and always will but there needs to be some administrators who can lead - my 2 cents worth :-) Go You Good Thing !
I think australia could win the world cup if the nrl players in australia dropped everything right now and all focused on rugby union for the next 3 years. The players in the nrl right now are so fit and skillful they would genuinely tear up rugby union oppositions. their only difficulties would be New zealand, England, ireland and south africa but even still i honestly think australia would be favourites. Rugby union in australia has become almost innaccessible for lower class families and even for higher class families there is limited clubs to choose from. In addition to this rugby league is genuinely a better career option as it pays more. Grassroots rugby union is almost non-existent in australia and most of our rugby players would join the nrl given the chance. we are already seeing so many of them do it already. I dont think there will be any kind of resurgence because rugby australia doesnt understand grassroots rugby and the afl and nrl is only growing bigger and bigger. In fact i think that we will see a similar drop off in New Zealand within the next 15-20 years in rugby union as Rugby League is growing rapidly over there too. there are already examples of Rugby union games starting times being moved around to accomodate for the warriors games so both can be broadcast. In fact we can already start to see a slight decline in new zealand rugby already.
The Wallabies are in a rebuilding phase. Joe Schmidt is laying the basis or their resurgence. Their squad is the youngest of all the teams in the Rugby Championship. 🇿🇦
Oh another rebuilding phase, seems we get one every couple of years, and the support continues to decline as promise after promise is broken year in year out.
@@MovieHeretic We Saffas were devastated after our 57:0 humiliation at the hands of the AB’s. We didn’t believe that it was ever possible to recover from that. But look at us now. We have depth across all positions going 3 - 5 players deep, and there are more young guns knocking at the door. There is no reason to believe that the Wallabies under a strategic coach as Joe cannot reach the exalted levels of years gone by (minus the cocky attitudes of course😉).
@@ashleybasson5664 that's the thing. Australia hasn't appeared to hurt anywhere near enough. The Wallabies jersey isn't revered enough by players and the Australian public like the Springboks jersey is by South Africans.
There wasn't so much a change in Australia's domestic sporting landscape. Rugby Union has always been miles behind Rugby League and Australian Football domestically. Union rightfully exploited Leagues mid 90's civil war, but so did Australian Football. With the latter also eating into Union's North Shore and Eastern Suburbs Sydney heartland. Most of this slow, excruciating, 20 year decline has been self inflicted by a home Union whose high risk - high reward gambles have failed to pay off. There's also the distrust and dysfunction between the national body and the various state unions. Rugby Union has a small piece of the sporting pie in Australia. The more money in the union, league and Australian Football, the harder it's become for Australian Rugby to keep up with international union rivals and it's domestic competitors. To stay relevant in the eyes of a fairweather Australian public (who generally prefer rival codes), they have the almost impossible task of needing to be anchored to the top 3 world ranking, and defeat the All Blacks at least ⅓ times they meet. This all coincided with New Zealand putting together the greatest All Blacks side of all time under the captaincy of Ritchie McCaw. Also during this time, the Wallabies have stolen defeat from the jaws of victory so many times, particularly against the All Blacks. Normally by doing almost everything right but forgetting to bring their kicking boots (looking at you Bernard Foley, Kurtley Beale, James O'Connor, Reese Hodge). These "missing victories" may have made a huge difference. Instead I think those loses (particularly against the All Blacks) mentally broke the Wallabies, well beyond the the mere starting 15 and substitutes. It's impossible to really know the extent of negative impact the whole Israel Folau saga had of the code, or even the Kurtley Beale / Ewen McKenzie episode had on the greater culture. Another glaring failure of Australian Rugby is the continued lack of Aboriginal Australians in the game, along with those at Super Rugby and Wallaby level. This is for various reasons, but what is clear is Australian Rugby has failed to attract another Mark Ella. While the AFL and NRL continue to be overrepresented by amazing Aboriginal talent. The Wallabies were once Australia's favourite national team. They were household names, and attracted 109000 into Sydney Olympic Stadium. Now most Australians could not name one Wallaby, and they can't even sell out Sydney's state of the art 42000 seat Allianz Stadium.
I'm die hard rugby league fan but Nathan Cleary could help the Wallabies ? Maybe ? All of Cleary's achievements in RL is set in stone & may never be surpassed, best player RL player ever, Cleary is still young enough to cross codes,
This doesn’t really explain the root cause of the issues. It’s not league or Aussie rules, it was poor management of high performance and development structures that started in the mid and late 90s. The reason for this poor performance is multifactorial with some of the blame on RA and other blame on the state unions and entrenched special interests. The bad decisions were all made before around 2011/2012 then RA didn’t have the political capital to make the changes needed until really recently. They have actually implemented significant structural reform to these pathways and things will probably improve over the next 5-10 years. Everything else is just a distraction
As a bok fan it saddens me deeply to see the wallabies where they are.the tri nations was the greatest tournament.even though are privinces play in the north now we still love our southern brother.cmon Ozzie and klap those loud mouth lions next year
Even as an Englishman i want to see the Wallabies back again. I still watch full games of them back in 99-03 and that period they were the best. They havent been good for the last 10 years. Hopefully they will rise again. I'm actually going to see them v Wales next month in Cardiff so hopefully they will put on a good show and it will be the start of their rise.
As an Australian, I'd love nothing more than the Wallabies to stop playing Wales. They are as depressing as us. Far too many fixtures against them, going back going decades. Not enough fixtures against the Irish and the French
Apart from the issues raised in the video, there's also another issue for the decline. The significant influx of foreign students, particularly from Asia into the Private School system has decimated the talent pool at the grass roots level. Hard to recover from that in the short term.
Our problem is that the Super 15 is on Pay TV. You want it on channels 9, 7, or 10 cause you want the poor kids to watch it and pick up a rugby ball? That's how AFL & NRL have taken talent away from Rugby, same as soccer, we are a sport mad country, and we can afford to be competitive in 5 different sports
Sydney is a different Story south of the Bridge and west of Ryde is simply League!!!!!, the grass roots talent caters League. Union still reliant from a private school league and a very exclusive club level.
Simple. Australian rugby is still caught in the amateur mindset that rugby should remain elitist hence why its only ever played by private schools and the white collar demograph. If RA targeted and become somewhat successful in growing the game in the Rugby League strongholds of Western Sydney and the Logan and Ipswich areas of Brisbane, Australian Rugby would be a much better place.
ive even heard talks about the Australian rugby league team and beat the wallabies in rugby union which could happen because some NRL players played rugby union and rugby league.
When i watch wales,scotland ireland i see irish ,welsh and scotts playing when i watch Aust i see samoa fiji mostly , our current #8 seems to be permanent ,he should be playing reserve grade. i don't think The ARU understand that forwards win matches ,backs by how much.theres no shortage of players in our private schools the talents there.
The NRL and State of Origin are a superior product than all of rugby unions club comps. Even NZ rugby is struggling to keep its best youngsters away from league and the NRL is dominating NZ super rugby ratings in NZ. NZ is fast turning into a league nation
@@WatchRugby24 Rugby is a good product but theres a reason why rugby league is doing really well in those parts and thats because they are producing a better product especially for younger generations. NRL merch is outselling all of NZ rugby merch in NZ. Talented kids are turning down a career with the All Blacks in favor for NRL
Wow it’s Almost like going professional in 1895 really helped league, union not going professional for 100 years really hurt it’s potential. Plus who wants to play for the Waratahs when you can play for real historic clubs like Souths or Parramatta compared to some franchise.
The Lions tour in Australia is the biggest. They lost last time but had a competitive side and won the series before. This time i cannot see anything but a whitewash. Aus do have some good players but fall short constantly. The AB game with the dealy of game kick is evident.
the wallabies stopped being competitive. NRL and AFL have more teams playing more games for more weeks and are always front of mind. People, especially kids form emotional attachments to their NRL or AFL teams. Wallabies games disappeared from free to air. People lost interest in rugby union.
Good lord this incredibly simplistic and doesn’t actually analyse their results on the field, on the P&L and in participation over time. AFL and NRL encroachment has had a long term effect yes but for that to be the only driver of decline we should have seen another decade of Aussie competitiveness (until say the early 2010s) similar to the 90s. A 10 year old attracted to league from Union in 2002 wouldn’t have been a test match player until well into the 2010s and would probably be still playing today. The reality is that the Wallabies of the mid 2000s were already a big step down from the Eales era team. With all performance metrics continuing downhill in a linear fashion from the 2003 World Cup. That’s nowhere near enough time to have felt the impact of aggressive marketing campaign campaigns from the other sports. The reality is that Super rugby expansion to 4 and then 5 teams had an immediate impact on Wallabies on field performance (there is a tonne of data via Ben Darwin to support this). Given Aus rugby has always had a top down a strategy of using the powerful brand of the wallabies to feed the rest of the sport (makes sense, for a very long time the wallabies held a niche with the corporate market that AFL and particularly NRL couldn’t meet and neither sport having an international element) - the impact of an ailing wallaby team flowed through to the rest of their game pretty quickly and has resulted in a spiral of shit. What they should have done was taken their 2003 windfall and put into a code defence war chest. Spent the money defending their Sydney and SEQ rugby strongholds from aggressive overtures from other codes. RA has effectively ceded their own heartland to chase pipe dreams in VIC and WA. Beyond dumb. Secondly, they should have done what both the NRL and AFL did and built their second tier out of existing club competitions rather than make fake new ones. I know this is unpalatable to a lot of people in Aus who hate the likes of Randwick etc but frankly these people needed to get real. In the end they did try this but it was too late at that point, the game was already dead
It's still not too late. They had the youngest team in TRC this year which could potentially work well in the long run. Also hosting the RWC in 2027 could mean a revival is on the horizon
There's a lot of truth to your post. It's also alienating to the Rugby communities and fair weather fans from everywhere outside inner Sydney and pockets of SEQ
@@PjRjHj I know dude, it’s heartbreaking stuff for you guys (assuming you’re an Aussie and you might be in this category). But you’ve been fighting an intense code war and in war there are casualties and collateral damage. There is no way you were going to get through with a good result for all. Instead you’ve sacrificed your heartland for new territory where you have (put charitably) made small in roads against incumbents. It was the wrong move
The saddest part is Australia jumped out of the blocks into the professional era. They adapted fastest. Then the gambles began to fail, alongside the larger northern hemisphere markets catching up, then leaving Australia in their wake.
Rugby Australia is almost completely f’d. They simply cannot attract elite athletes anymore, all who play NRL which has much more money and a vastly better premiership season
Because we've seen and/or played the amateur, semi pro and professional levels of both sports. League although more physically demanding is more fulfilling, more fun to play/watch. There's just a lot more going on in a game. Sorry if this offends but Union is "easier" , they're both good sports but Rugby league is intense, even on an amateur level, whereas rugby union you can just get by sticking to your role, position. Obviously I'm missing a lot of other factors like money and grassroots, but you have to factor in, that we have both codes at a high level and easily rugby league is a better product. We obviously want to see Wallabies strong but other than that, the game isn't anywhere near as interesting as rugby league
@@WatchRugby24 It's the club competitions. You have 200++ games a year from each AFL and NRL. People have emotional attachments to their clubs and follow along each season bringing in advertising $$.
The ARU destroyed Union is Australia and they failed their grassroots as well by not allowing Union in public schools and not having their own provincial professional competition like how NZ and S.A have the NPC and Currie cup those competitions nurture future players for their national teams
Joe Schmidt is the perfect coach but he needs time and Phil Waugh needs to give him time be clever and tap into the Aus NRL talent there are players who don’t have contracts at the moment we Saffas need a strong Aus and Nz but focus on the NRL route rugby Aus I CAN HELP
Rugby league and proper rugby have different skill sets, most NRL players would struggle in international union no less than the wallabies currently do.
Rugby league has always drained player talent, its not a new thing. AFL is increasing in prominence in former rugby areas and with their ability to attract young players through an organisation that is committed to grass roots, rugby's top down approach is doomed. Some realism needs to be injected here. A national rugby competition has failed time and time again, there's no really support for it and areas outside the major centers calling for teams are left unanswered. For example the least debacle, there were a number of options for a Central Coast team, never happened, the area is now League dominated, and before anyone starts whinging about lack of support for other codes, the Mariners aren't doing half badly in the A League. The RA solution has always been expansion in super rugby which has been a complete disaster, map the expansion versus results at provincial and test level and a picture emerges. To be honest rugby is dead in the water in Australia unless they enlist professional management at the board level, not former players, and actually advertise the game better, free to air options would be a start. A Bled fixture in Sydney not selling out, the writing is on the wall folks. Just to make things harder for Rugby Australia, League, AFL, A League, and NBL are all expanding with new teams coming into the various competitions next year and further teams planned for the next few years in each sport (though there are some crazy ideas out there, Auckland FC?, a Port Moresby team?)
@@MovieHeretic it's an uphill battle for Australian rugby but it's not impossible to comeback if the right steps are taken. The rest of the rugby world is waiting anxiously to see them rise again 🦘🇦🇺
@@chalkandcheese1868 it's the other way around. Far more have flowed from Union to League than League to Union. Union turned the tables slightly in the aftermath of League's Superleague civil war, but these days the flow direction had returned to League
@@PjRjHj Nonsense, you don't know what you're talking about. The percentage of kids that started off playing rugby league and didn't know anything else, and then somehow ended up playing Union, is far greater than the other way around, RL has 20x more players than union. The list of Wallabies with a RL background in the last 40 years would be way bigger than Kangaroos with a union background.
Even us kiwis are crying for them to get better come on lads use can do it.. all those great coaches and still can’t get a break the downfall came even worse when they got rid of their best player Israel Folau for having an opinion lol keep wokeism out of our game
@@mattf1998 difference is. Aus has a very strong, very lucrative and highly popular Rugby League competition that attracts similar type built athletes to the other code. From grassroots all the way up to pro league league. All the gifted athletes in country are choosing NRL over union.
U forgot to mention AFL Soccor and Athletics. AFL and League has all the money right now with sponsors and broadcasters wanting to get on board. Unions been struggling to get bums on seats over here. It’s quite boring to watch and we are no competition for the nz teams. The ARU board are partly to blame. They ve been quite arrogant since winning the rwc in 1999. They made union exclusive to private schools and not engaging with grass roots rugby. It’s a shambles. There is no longer community engagement like afl and league. AFL and league players seem like human beings but rugby players seem distant from their fans. Gone are the days when you could ask almost anyone on the street, to name at least one wallaby player. There is no community engagement from the wallabies anymore and most games are no longer free to air. The players come of quiet boring arrogant and without character. it’s really odd. And that goes for the women’s game too. League has gone pro now with more union players making the switch to nrlw while rugby continues to struggle in finding funding for tours.
@@DrayDraynIf the NRL is so lucrative then why did it need the state government to hand out fancy stadia for them? I look at this oily little man that the NRL got from horse racing to:run their game and I have to suspect that this is all smoke and mirrors.
As a New Zealander who is old enough to remember that golden era Australia enjoyed, especially between 1998-2003, it's sad seeing how far they have fallen. Rugby Union in Australia has always struggled to compete with the NRL and AFL in terms of viewership levels and player numbers and simply won't ever compete with those two sports. They can co-exist with them however. Their main problems lie elsewhere.
There simply isn't enough being done to nurture and grow the grassroots level of the game. They lack a provincial competition between club and Super Rugby/URC level like New Zealand and South Africa have with the NPC and Currie Cup respectively. Super Rugby when it expanded to use geographical conferences was partly done to extend the length of the season and compensate for this lack of a feeder competition in Australia. Eddie Jones allegedly stipulated in his contact for his second stint as Wallabies coach that Rugby Australia invest more in the grassroots but he found himself being stonewalled, so he quit the job but in the process badly harmed his own reputation.
The way the conferences were set up in Super Rugby also had a negative impact on their game. They were allowed to play half their games against each other with the conference winner gaining an automatic home playoff spot. This led to a drop in standards even though the Reds and Waratahs won a title each in the early years of this setup. It reached its peak level of insanity in 2017 when the Brumbies were awarded a home quarter final as the Australian Conference winner despite having fewer competition points than all five NZ teams. That year saw the Western Force cut from the competition at the end of it.
These issues ultimately stem from the boardroom in Rugby Australia. They seem to keep making bad decisions and aren't generating enough revenue. They even forced NZR to give them some of their own broadcast revenue to keep them in SR Pacific. They also cut the Melbourne Rebels who were in serious debt and refused to accept the club's attempts to get themselves back in a good financial state. This has resulted in legal action being taken with both sides suing each other. It coiuld get messy.
Joe Scmidt has an extremely difficult job on his hands getting his team ready for the British and Irish Lions tour in 2025 and the World Cup in Australia in 2027.
@@noelburland7169 thank you for taking the time to share. A massive weight on the shoulders of Joe Schmidt. Let's see if clear action is taken in the next couple of years to get Aus back to where they belong 🙌🏼🇦🇺
I’m a New Zealander who grew up playing rugby and used to watch it.
and couldn’t give a stuff either way about Australian rugby. No I don’t hate them, but I’m not sad.
They brought it upon themselves with their useless narrow-minded and alienated management. They were in the box seat to cement themselves as a major sport in their country 25 years ago and they blew it through idiotic management decisions,
And let’s not forget how they stabbed NZ rugby in the back over dropping our country as co-hosts for the 2023 World Cup, conveniently forgetting how we helped peope their rugby up back in the 1970s and early 1980s.
No sympathy deserved nor given. They made their own bed and shat in it on this one.
i agree with all of the above especially Rugby Aust have been appalling in their leadership and counter suing Melb Rebels in mind shows it continues - and the treatment of Carter Gordon ABSOLUTELY APPALING no surprise he went to League all they had to say is we won't leave you hanging like rugby did - i mean Carter only had to look at the treatment of Quade and Michael Hooper - Quade should have been there in the last RWC as a player and a mentor to Carter - i love rugby and always will but there needs to be some administrators who can lead - my 2 cents worth :-) Go You Good Thing !
7:55 lol Carter Gordon is in the NRL too now. He joined one of the lower ranked teams rather than sticking with the Wallabies 😂😂😂
Carter Gordon has left Rugby
you are spot on - rugby league attracting players and coach turn stiles due to assoc poorly managing the sport !
I think australia could win the world cup if the nrl players in australia dropped everything right now and all focused on rugby union for the next 3 years. The players in the nrl right now are so fit and skillful they would genuinely tear up rugby union oppositions. their only difficulties would be New zealand, England, ireland and south africa but even still i honestly think australia would be favourites. Rugby union in australia has become almost innaccessible for lower class families and even for higher class families there is limited clubs to choose from. In addition to this rugby league is genuinely a better career option as it pays more. Grassroots rugby union is almost non-existent in australia and most of our rugby players would join the nrl given the chance. we are already seeing so many of them do it already. I dont think there will be any kind of resurgence because rugby australia doesnt understand grassroots rugby and the afl and nrl is only growing bigger and bigger. In fact i think that we will see a similar drop off in New Zealand within the next 15-20 years in rugby union as Rugby League is growing rapidly over there too. there are already examples of Rugby union games starting times being moved around to accomodate for the warriors games so both can be broadcast. In fact we can already start to see a slight decline in new zealand rugby already.
The Wallabies are in a rebuilding phase. Joe Schmidt is laying the basis or their resurgence. Their squad is the youngest of all the teams in the Rugby Championship. 🇿🇦
@@ashleybasson5664 can't wait to see their comeback unfold 🇦🇺🙌🏼
Oh another rebuilding phase, seems we get one every couple of years, and the support continues to decline as promise after promise is broken year in year out.
@@MovieHeretic true that's not the first time and probably won't be the last
@@MovieHeretic We Saffas were devastated after our 57:0 humiliation at the hands of the AB’s. We didn’t believe that it was ever possible to recover from that. But look at us now. We have depth across all positions going 3 - 5 players deep, and there are more young guns knocking at the door. There is no reason to believe that the Wallabies under a strategic coach as Joe cannot reach the exalted levels of years gone by (minus the cocky attitudes of course😉).
@@ashleybasson5664 that's the thing. Australia hasn't appeared to hurt anywhere near enough. The Wallabies jersey isn't revered enough by players and the Australian public like the Springboks jersey is by South Africans.
There wasn't so much a change in Australia's domestic sporting landscape. Rugby Union has always been miles behind Rugby League and Australian Football domestically.
Union rightfully exploited Leagues mid 90's civil war, but so did Australian Football. With the latter also eating into Union's North Shore and Eastern Suburbs Sydney heartland.
Most of this slow, excruciating, 20 year decline has been self inflicted by a home Union whose high risk - high reward gambles have failed to pay off.
There's also the distrust and dysfunction between the national body and the various state unions.
Rugby Union has a small piece of the sporting pie in Australia. The more money in the union, league and Australian Football, the harder it's become for Australian Rugby to keep up with international union rivals and it's domestic competitors.
To stay relevant in the eyes of a fairweather Australian public (who generally prefer rival codes), they have the almost impossible task of needing to be anchored to the top 3 world ranking, and defeat the All Blacks at least ⅓ times they meet.
This all coincided with New Zealand putting together the greatest All Blacks side of all time under the captaincy of Ritchie McCaw.
Also during this time, the Wallabies have stolen defeat from the jaws of victory so many times, particularly against the All Blacks. Normally by doing almost everything right but forgetting to bring their kicking boots (looking at you Bernard Foley, Kurtley Beale, James O'Connor, Reese Hodge).
These "missing victories" may have made a huge difference. Instead I think those loses (particularly against the All Blacks) mentally broke the Wallabies, well beyond the the mere starting 15 and substitutes.
It's impossible to really know the extent of negative impact the whole Israel Folau saga had of the code, or even the Kurtley Beale / Ewen McKenzie episode had on the greater culture.
Another glaring failure of Australian Rugby is the continued lack of Aboriginal Australians in the game, along with those at Super Rugby and Wallaby level.
This is for various reasons, but what is clear is Australian Rugby has failed to attract another Mark Ella. While the AFL and NRL continue to be overrepresented by amazing Aboriginal talent.
The Wallabies were once Australia's favourite national team. They were household names, and attracted 109000 into Sydney Olympic Stadium. Now most Australians could not name one Wallaby, and they can't even sell out Sydney's state of the art 42000 seat Allianz Stadium.
I'm die hard rugby league fan but Nathan Cleary could help the Wallabies ? Maybe ?
All of Cleary's achievements in RL is set in stone & may never be surpassed, best player RL player ever, Cleary is still young enough to cross codes,
Rugby league can’t even sell it stadiums cmon don’t be that delusional.
This doesn’t really explain the root cause of the issues. It’s not league or Aussie rules, it was poor management of high performance and development structures that started in the mid and late 90s. The reason for this poor performance is multifactorial with some of the blame on RA and other blame on the state unions and entrenched special interests. The bad decisions were all made before around 2011/2012 then RA didn’t have the political capital to make the changes needed until really recently.
They have actually implemented significant structural reform to these pathways and things will probably improve over the next 5-10 years. Everything else is just a distraction
As a bok fan it saddens me deeply to see the wallabies where they are.the tri nations was the greatest tournament.even though are privinces play in the north now we still love our southern brother.cmon Ozzie and klap those loud mouth lions next year
Even as an Englishman i want to see the Wallabies back again. I still watch full games of them back in 99-03 and that period they were the best. They havent been good for the last 10 years. Hopefully they will rise again. I'm actually going to see them v Wales next month in Cardiff so hopefully they will put on a good show and it will be the start of their rise.
They are definitely missed as a top team
As an Australian, I'd love nothing more than the Wallabies to stop playing Wales. They are as depressing as us.
Far too many fixtures against them, going back going decades. Not enough fixtures against the Irish and the French
Apart from the issues raised in the video, there's also another issue for the decline. The significant influx of foreign students, particularly from Asia into the Private School system has decimated the talent pool at the grass roots level. Hard to recover from that in the short term.
That's definitely something we didn't think about
As and Australian we never stopped being contenders and is still massive especially in Canberra
@@lachlangray9701 love to hear it 🔥🇦🇺
Crusaders fan here. What I wouldn't give for another Crusaders Brumbies final.
@@Metylercaas a brumbies fan I’m hoping this year we can manage to make a grand final
Our problem is that the Super 15 is on Pay TV. You want it on channels 9, 7, or 10 cause you want the poor kids to watch it and pick up a rugby ball? That's how AFL & NRL have taken talent away from Rugby, same as soccer, we are a sport mad country, and we can afford to be competitive in 5 different sports
Sydney is a different Story south of the Bridge and west of Ryde is simply League!!!!!, the grass roots talent caters League. Union still reliant from a private school league and a very exclusive club level.
Always loved watching the Wallabies. Lately they've been a shadow of their former selves
Question now is can they rebuild
Simple. Australian rugby is still caught in the amateur mindset that rugby should remain elitist hence why its only ever played by private schools and the white collar demograph. If RA targeted and become somewhat successful in growing the game in the Rugby League strongholds of Western Sydney and the Logan and Ipswich areas of Brisbane, Australian Rugby would be a much better place.
ive even heard talks about the Australian rugby league team and beat the wallabies in rugby union which could happen because some NRL players played rugby union and rugby league.
When i watch wales,scotland ireland i see irish ,welsh and scotts playing when i watch Aust i see samoa fiji mostly , our current #8 seems to be permanent ,he should be playing reserve grade. i don't think The ARU understand that forwards win matches ,backs by how much.theres no shortage of players in our private schools the talents there.
As a South African this is very disappointing...but Australia is more focused on Rugby league which has killed Rugby Union
True very unfortunate. Hope it turns around 2026/27 for the RWC
The NRL and State of Origin are a superior product than all of rugby unions club comps. Even NZ rugby is struggling to keep its best youngsters away from league and the NRL is dominating NZ super rugby ratings in NZ. NZ is fast turning into a league nation
@@tinasherusike7458 Very true. It's sad to see the sport we love die off in countries that used to be the best in the world at it
@@WatchRugby24 Rugby is a good product but theres a reason why rugby league is doing really well in those parts and thats because they are producing a better product especially for younger generations. NRL merch is outselling all of NZ rugby merch in NZ. Talented kids are turning down a career with the All Blacks in favor for NRL
Wow it’s Almost like going professional in 1895 really helped league, union not going professional for 100 years really hurt it’s potential. Plus who wants to play for the Waratahs when you can play for real historic clubs like Souths or Parramatta compared to some franchise.
@@mario18661 sometimes the truth hurts 🤕
History’s.
C’mon it’s only looooig, they don’t even care about their own history, they’re always uglying-up their playing strips, etc.
The Lions tour in Australia is the biggest. They lost last time but had a competitive side and won the series before. This time i cannot see anything but a whitewash. Aus do have some good players but fall short constantly. The AB game with the dealy of game kick is evident.
Australian resurgence is vital. The rest of the rugby world wants to see it 🇦🇺❤️
the wallabies stopped being competitive. NRL and AFL have more teams playing more games for more weeks and are always front of mind. People, especially kids form emotional attachments to their NRL or AFL teams. Wallabies games disappeared from free to air. People lost interest in rugby union.
Taniela Tupou is injury prone
Will they come back? 🇦🇺 🎉
Million dollar question
Carter Gordon has gone to the Gold Coast Titans in the NRL.
@@edsmith4160 another one bites the dust 🛂🇦🇺
MAKE AUSTRALIA GREAT AGAIN!!😢
Couldn't agree more 🇦🇺🦘❤️
Good lord this incredibly simplistic and doesn’t actually analyse their results on the field, on the P&L and in participation over time. AFL and NRL encroachment has had a long term effect yes but for that to be the only driver of decline we should have seen another decade of Aussie competitiveness (until say the early 2010s) similar to the 90s. A 10 year old attracted to league from Union in 2002 wouldn’t have been a test match player until well into the 2010s and would probably be still playing today.
The reality is that the Wallabies of the mid 2000s were already a big step down from the Eales era team. With all performance metrics continuing downhill in a linear fashion from the 2003 World Cup. That’s nowhere near enough time to have felt the impact of aggressive marketing campaign campaigns from the other sports.
The reality is that Super rugby expansion to 4 and then 5 teams had an immediate impact on Wallabies on field performance (there is a tonne of data via Ben Darwin to support this). Given Aus rugby has always had a top down a strategy of using the powerful brand of the wallabies to feed the rest of the sport (makes sense, for a very long time the wallabies held a niche with the corporate market that AFL and particularly NRL couldn’t meet and neither sport having an international element) - the impact of an ailing wallaby team flowed through to the rest of their game pretty quickly and has resulted in a spiral of shit.
What they should have done was taken their 2003 windfall and put into a code defence war chest. Spent the money defending their Sydney and SEQ rugby strongholds from aggressive overtures from other codes. RA has effectively ceded their own heartland to chase pipe dreams in VIC and WA. Beyond dumb. Secondly, they should have done what both the NRL and AFL did and built their second tier out of existing club competitions rather than make fake new ones. I know this is unpalatable to a lot of people in Aus who hate the likes of Randwick etc but frankly these people needed to get real. In the end they did try this but it was too late at that point, the game was already dead
It's still not too late. They had the youngest team in TRC this year which could potentially work well in the long run. Also hosting the RWC in 2027 could mean a revival is on the horizon
As a all black I really want to see the wallabies dominate world rugby again and humble the springboks and all blacks
@@LandyFortuin would really love to see that happen again 🇦🇺🙌🏼
There's a lot of truth to your post. It's also alienating to the Rugby communities and fair weather fans from everywhere outside inner Sydney and pockets of SEQ
@@PjRjHj I know dude, it’s heartbreaking stuff for you guys (assuming you’re an Aussie and you might be in this category). But you’ve been fighting an intense code war and in war there are casualties and collateral damage. There is no way you were going to get through with a good result for all. Instead you’ve sacrificed your heartland for new territory where you have (put charitably) made small in roads against incumbents. It was the wrong move
Countries that have got professional rugby wrong.
1. Australia
2. Wales
3. Canada
You could add NZ too, professional there isn’t good atm, NPC is better
@@goldenchild19 they're still good though. They're just a bit let down by Australia and they're not dominant like they used to be.
The saddest part is Australia jumped out of the blocks into the professional era. They adapted fastest. Then the gambles began to fail, alongside the larger northern hemisphere markets catching up, then leaving Australia in their wake.
@@PjRjHj yes that is sad. They adapted to professional rugby before anyone else but they then rested on their laurels.
Rugby Australia is almost completely f’d. They simply cannot attract elite athletes anymore, all who play NRL which has much more money and a vastly better premiership season
The wallabies are playing like wannabes for real australia rugby is being a menace to society when it comes to lose after lose
Because we've seen and/or played the amateur, semi pro and professional levels of both sports. League although more physically demanding is more fulfilling, more fun to play/watch. There's just a lot more going on in a game. Sorry if this offends but Union is "easier" , they're both good sports but Rugby league is intense, even on an amateur level, whereas rugby union you can just get by sticking to your role, position.
Obviously I'm missing a lot of other factors like money and grassroots, but you have to factor in, that we have both codes at a high level and easily rugby league is a better product. We obviously want to see Wallabies strong but other than that, the game isn't anywhere near as interesting as rugby league
@@Youser57 it's understandable
AFL and Rugby League are responsible for Rugby's downfall in Australia.
Aggressive marketing, more money, better sponsors. Can't blame them can we
Rugby has not helped itself
@@WatchRugby24 It's the club competitions. You have 200++ games a year from each AFL and NRL. People have emotional attachments to their clubs and follow along each season bringing in advertising $$.
The ARU destroyed Union is Australia and they failed their grassroots as well by not allowing Union in public schools and not having their own provincial professional competition like how NZ and S.A have the NPC and Currie cup those competitions nurture future players for their national teams
Joe Schmidt is the perfect coach but he needs time and Phil Waugh needs to give him time be clever and tap into the Aus NRL talent there are players who don’t have contracts at the moment we Saffas need a strong Aus and Nz but focus on the NRL route rugby Aus I CAN HELP
@@brendonwilliams5709 great coach that can hopefully make a great team once again 🇦🇺🙌🏼
Rugby league and proper rugby have different skill sets, most NRL players would struggle in international union no less than the wallabies currently do.
@@danieleyre8913😂😂😂😂
Rugby league has always drained player talent, its not a new thing. AFL is increasing in prominence in former rugby areas and with their ability to attract young players through an organisation that is committed to grass roots, rugby's top down approach is doomed. Some realism needs to be injected here. A national rugby competition has failed time and time again, there's no really support for it and areas outside the major centers calling for teams are left unanswered. For example the least debacle, there were a number of options for a Central Coast team, never happened, the area is now League dominated, and before anyone starts whinging about lack of support for other codes, the Mariners aren't doing half badly in the A League. The RA solution has always been expansion in super rugby which has been a complete disaster, map the expansion versus results at provincial and test level and a picture emerges.
To be honest rugby is dead in the water in Australia unless they enlist professional management at the board level, not former players, and actually advertise the game better, free to air options would be a start. A Bled fixture in Sydney not selling out, the writing is on the wall folks.
Just to make things harder for Rugby Australia, League, AFL, A League, and NBL are all expanding with new teams coming into the various competitions next year and further teams planned for the next few years in each sport (though there are some crazy ideas out there, Auckland FC?, a Port Moresby team?)
@@MovieHeretic it's an uphill battle for Australian rugby but it's not impossible to comeback if the right steps are taken. The rest of the rugby world is waiting anxiously to see them rise again 🦘🇦🇺
Rugby league has been a feeder code to Union for years, going back to the Ella Brothers
@@chalkandcheese1868 it's the other way around. Far more have flowed from Union to League than League to Union.
Union turned the tables slightly in the aftermath of League's Superleague civil war, but these days the flow direction had returned to League
@@PjRjHj Nonsense, you don't know what you're talking about. The percentage of kids that started off playing rugby league and didn't know anything else, and then somehow ended up playing Union, is far greater than the other way around, RL has 20x more players than union. The list of Wallabies with a RL background in the last 40 years would be way bigger than Kangaroos with a union background.
Australia sadly haven’t been a proper side since 2015. Shame.
@@averagechannel6814 it's sad to see 🤕
Carter Gordon?
@@ashdionysius3227 not anymore 😞
@@WatchRugby24 little oversight there. Good video though
@@ashdionysius3227 indeed slipped through the the script. Appreciate it
🇦🇺🏉🏟️
@@heyitsmecherryb 🙌🏼❤️
Remember when and what happened to Israel Folau in 2019? Since then Rugby Australia went down. When will we learn?
@@tinusmarais1635 woke nonsense. Doesn't belong in our game
Even us kiwis are crying for them to get better come on lads use can do it.. all those great coaches and still can’t get a break the downfall came even worse when they got rid of their best player Israel Folau for having an opinion lol keep wokeism out of our game
@@taraishot100 high time for a revival
Tubby polys
@@laffo1980 😅😂
True. When it was mostly white players they were strong.
As a South African this is very disappointing...but Australia is more focused on Rugby league which has killed Rugby Union
Nonsense. Ireland has a much smaller population l are the best in the world yet rugby union is their 4th sport.
@@mattf1998 number 1 in the rankings doesn't mean best in the world
@@mattf1998 difference is. Aus has a very strong, very lucrative and highly popular Rugby League competition that attracts similar type built athletes to the other code. From grassroots all the way up to pro league league. All the gifted athletes in country are choosing NRL over union.
U forgot to mention AFL Soccor and Athletics.
AFL and League has all the money right now with sponsors and broadcasters wanting to get on board.
Unions been struggling to get bums on seats over here. It’s quite boring to watch and we are no competition for the nz teams.
The ARU board are partly to blame. They ve been quite arrogant since winning the rwc in 1999. They made union exclusive to private schools and not engaging with grass roots rugby. It’s a shambles.
There is no longer community engagement like afl and league.
AFL and league players seem like human beings but rugby players seem distant from their fans.
Gone are the days when you could ask almost anyone on the street, to name at least one wallaby player.
There is no community engagement from the wallabies anymore and most games are no longer free to air.
The players come of quiet boring arrogant and without character.
it’s really odd. And that goes for the women’s game too. League has gone pro now with more union players making the switch to nrlw while rugby continues to struggle in finding funding for tours.
@@DrayDraynIf the NRL is so lucrative then why did it need the state government to hand out fancy stadia for them?
I look at this oily little man that the NRL got from horse racing to:run their game and I have to suspect that this is all smoke and mirrors.