Wallabies face annual All Blacks exam with new reason for hope | Bledisloe Cup

Bledisloe Cup week: New Zealanders still enjoy it, Australians have grown to dread it. For Wallabies fans, it’s an annual check-up akin to a visit to the dentist or doctor, a usually ignominious ordeal in which they’re painfully examined and sent away to do better. “Tsk, tsk,” they seem to say, year after year. “Maybe it’s time to make some changes.”

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

It was a hot 10 weeks and seven Tests for the Schmidt era. In July his team were flattered twice by Wales and then tested by Georgia, but they did enough to win all three Tests. In August they suffered back-to-back blows from world champions South Africans, but they climbed off the canvas with a 20-19 win over Argentina in La Plata.

That season high was further enhanced when they led Los Pumas 20-3 inside 30 minutes in Santa Fe, but turned into an all-time low in the last 30 when they conceded 50 points. The 67-27 defeat was a 125-year low and a crushing loss after such a bright start. Now that they’ve bottomed out, they’ll need to bounce back against old foes the All Blacks.

There is more at stake than just silverware and Trans-Tasman bragging rights. The AFL finals are in full swing and a Sydney-Brisbane grand final is still possible. If North Queensland continue their run in the NRL final against the Sydney teams, rugby union’s declining popularity in both traditional heartlands will come under fire.

Most believe the Wallabies have two chances this Saturday: “Buckley’s and none”. This most Australian of expressions traditionally denotes a state of affairs beyond hopelessness, but closer inspection reveals that convict William Buckley, who escaped in 1803 and was given up for dead, actually defied the grim predictions and survived for 30 years in the wild.

Like Buckley, who was rescued and adopted by the Wallarranga, the Wallabies have learned new ways of thinking, hunting and flourishing under rugby stalwarts Schmidt and Cron. Until the late disaster in Santa Fe, Australia had been outstanding in both Tests against Los Pumas, with dominance in the scrum and lineout and growing innovation in their backline.

The question is whether this year’s Bledisloe Cup cause is as hopeless as it seems. Schmidt urges his team to focus on three great Pumas halves, not one sad 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 the first time, equal to New Zealand’s.

The All Blacks suffered a rare home defeat to Argentina five weeks ago and are still reeling from two defeats to the Springboks by six and four points (Australia lost by 27 and 18). New Zealand are still No. 3 in the world and Australia No. 9, but All Blacks coach Scott Robertson’s young team are far from the ruthless force of their predecessors.

Not so the New Zealand press. Winning by 25% in the Rugby Championship is unacceptable, nay unthinkable, for the All Blacks and Robertson is under pressure. Assistant coach Leon McDonald left him three weeks ago after five Tests on the job. Losing to Australia, who go into this Sydney Test as heavy underdogs, will be disastrous.

Trans-Tasman rugby has bigger problems. 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. And all this while the NRL thrives, branching out into new territories and attracting more dollars from sponsors and broadcasters.

Two decades of Wallabies decline have diminished the Bledisloe as a top series and neither this Test nor the return match in Wellington on September 28 have sold out. New Zealand has taken pity on Australia and no longer sees them as a credible threat. Sad as that is, here’s something even crazier: world rugby needs Australia to win too.

The chances are that it won’t. But nobody gave Buckley a chance either. When he turned up in Port Phillip 32 years later, with kangaroo skins over his slave tattoo “WB”, he was no longer the soldier who had fought Napoleon’s troops 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 revived, 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 already capped in 2024, Generation Next is ready for its Bledisloe christening.