Australia doesnt need a marriage counsellor just a little respect

By Wayne Smith August 23, 2021 â€" 3.45pm

Snapped at a loved one lately? Are their little foibles, so endearing to begin with, now presenting as major character flaws? Welcome to the world of lockdowns, and the warning signs of trouble aren’t merely confined to individuals.

Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby have been thrown together by the coronavirus, far closer than their shared geography ever intended. Initially, they couldn’t do enough for each other, manipulating the draws for the 2020 Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship to ensure they both went ahead. And in many ways, they were the most fascinating series in a long time.

Unimpressed: Dave RennieCredit:Getty

But nature hadn’t intended for the Wallabies and All Blacks to rub up against each other in such a condensed, concentrated way. Never before have so many trans-Tasman Tests been scheduled in so short a period, seven in less than 11 months. At first, RA couldn’t get enough of it. Now, their tolerance is wearing thin, especially following New Zealand’s decision to “ask” for back-to-back Tests at Eden Park.

No-one in their right minds would play the first two Tests of a three-Test series at the very fortress of NZ rugby. Talk about killing the series stone dead before anyone had even turned their thoughts to Bledisloe III. But, through gritted teeth, they agreed.

Now, having secured the trophy, NZR has decided the sold-out Test in Perth is superfluous to requirements. True, they did give RA warning on the phone that unless they could give the post-Perth schedule for the Rugby Championship some certainty, they wouldn’t be coming. What they didn’t share was their intention to leak that information to the media within minutes of the call ending, denying RA three hours to convince the Queensland Government to play host.

RA exploded, as they were fully entitled to do. Who has certainty in this age of COVID? It’s not just the All Blacks who are suffering. The Wallabies have been assembled since June and look like being together for some time to come. Think back to the mental health warning given by Melbourne chief executive Baden Stephenson when the Rebels were sent on the road for months to save the Super Rugby season.

Then NZ dropped another bombshell - the All Blacks weren’t fully vaccinated. Apparently, they had been too busy wiping the floor with Australia to get their second jab. But if RA could just reschedule the Optus Stadium match back a week, to September 4, why, they might be able to get it done. The NZR is parading behind the banner of “player welfare” in everything it is doing. Their sheer arrogance is breath-taking.

And let’s not delve too deeply into whether financial interests are clouding the NZR’s already murky thinking.

Colleague Paul Cully amusingly has described the situation as RA and NZR being locked in a loveless marriage, one in which the children â€" South Africa, in this case - have flown the coop. The parents suddenly have looked critically at each other and decided they have nothing in common.

The problem, though, is that the estranged parties can’t simply go their own separate ways. Australia and NZ are joined at the hip. If that partnership is sundered, there will be no force in the rugby world with the counter-weight capable of balancing the northern hemisphere bloc.

Still, Australia does not need a “marriage counsellor” of the ilk of former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. He has recommended that for the good of the game on this side of the ditch, we should cull two of our Super Rugby teams and revert to three. Does he seriously believe we hadn’t thought of that?

The trial separation that came about in 2017 almost destroyed Australian rugby before RA chairman Hamish McLennan and Western Force owner Andrew Forrest brought the two warring parties back under the same roof again. No-one wants to go down that path again.

It might help if the Kiwis actually had some genuine regard for Australia. We might not have a national obsession with rugby, the way they do but, generally speaking, we do OK. What’s more, they’ve done their homework and they know we do. They realise that no other country gives them more grief when they travel abroad than Australia. They have played the Wallabies 14 times over the past decade in Australia and won only seven of those matches. There was, as well, that agonising 28-29 loss in Ewen McKenzie’s final Test as coach.

That’s a win rate of just 50 percent, their worst result against any Tier One nation. At the same time, from 2011-2020, the AB’s have never lost a Test in Argentina, France, Scotland, Wales or Italy. Ireland and England scored one win at home against them, the Springboks two â€" and all at a lower percentage than Australia.

So basically, the Wallabies are as good as it gets from the All Blacks’ perspective. And we play attractively. Aretha Franklin had it right. All we want is respect.

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