Rugby Australia’s ‘wait until 2027’ defence is a fantasy

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Max Jorgensen’s serious injury at training is a shame on multiple fronts, but he really should not have been in France in the first place.

This column repeatedly warned this year that he was being overplayed even at Super Rugby level, and that someone at Rugby Australia needed to tell Eddie Jones he wasn’t taking a bloke who has barely turned 19 to a World Cup.

His injuries this year were all too predictable, but sadly standard practice for Australian rugby: young players are thrown into Super Rugby before they’re ready because there are two too many teams and too many positions to fill.

Jorgensen was another player selected with an eye to the future, with the 2025 British and Irish Lions tour fast closing in, followed by the home World Cup two years later.

The rationale is superficially easy to understand – in fact it is far too simplistic.

Using France as an example, Rugby Australia argues that blooding young players at this Rugby World Cup, as opposed to waiting a year, will set them up for 2027.

Wallabies Matt Philip and Samu Kerevi address the media in France with assistant coach Dan Palmer. Credit: Getty

But, exactly how many of the French squad from 2019 have been selected again in 2023? Only eight, which is not an unusually high number. Also, four of those blokes were already mature-age picks in 2019, aged between 24-26, and therefore Test-ready athletes.

In other words, only four of France’s ‘future player’ picks in 2019 made it through to 2023 (that will go down to three if it is confirmed that Antoine Dupont suffered a facial fracture against Namibia).

And again that’s not atypical; the Wallabies themselves picked a ‘young’ Jordan Uelese, Taniela Tupou, Izack Rodda and Jordan Petaia in 2019.

The France comparison, therefore, doesn’t stack up and Rugby Australia should stop using it to justify the Wallabies’ 2023 strategy, which is on a different scale and far from the ‘tried and tested’ approach it has been presented as.

Jordan Petaia, Carter Gordon, Marika Koroibete and Ben Donaldson at training ahead of the crunch Wales clash.Credit: Getty

The second point about waiting for 2027 – setting aside the fact that Wallabies fans’ appetite for delayed gratification is basically zero – is that the theory only works if all of their rivals plan on sitting still or going backwards over the next four years.

That’s plainly a ridiculous statement: everyone has a plan to improve (the South Africans and New Zealand Rugby, for example, are making good progress on plans to revive Springboks-All Blacks tours, including midweek games against Super Rugby clubs – a development that would leave Australian rugby somewhat on the sidelines).

I wouldn’t have the Wallabies (or the All Blacks) in the top five of my ‘most likely to improve over the next four years’.

The conditions are far more conducive for Fiji, Samoa, Italy, Japan and France to improve, for varied and sometimes complex reasons.

But, take Fiji for example.

It’s true that some of their big players such as Levani Botia, 34, won’t make it to 2027, but imagine what they’d be like with a genuine top-class Test No.10?

Guess what, the Fijian Drua have just announced the signing of Isaiah Ravula-Armstrong, a gun who came through the New Zealand system (Hurricanes under-20 and Manawatu in the NPC) but has committed his future to Fiji. If he develops the way Fiji expects, the Pacific Islanders have the potential to be top five in the world.

The third element of this is that I have no faith that the professional game in Australia is actually structured in a way to guarantee the improvement of the Wallabies. Australia doesn’t have the depth or the resources to run five professional teams, one more than Ireland and South Africa.

As for “centralisation” being the great answer, Rugby Australia’s recent announcement about this strategy lacked detail.

And frankly, why would the states give more power to RA if the Wallabies don’t make the quarter-finals in France, on the back of the well-documented issues in the Wallaroos program?

All of the above is connected to former Wallabies winger’s Drew Mitchell’s emotion-fuelled rant at Eddie Jones this week. What do Australian rugby fans want at the moment? Yes, a run into the quarters and semi-finals would be nice – and it’s still a possibility – but the yearning out there is for something far more important: accountability.

Watch all the action from Rugby World Cup 2023 on the Home of Rugby, Stan Sport. Every match streaming ad-free, live and in 4K UHD with replays, mini matches and highlights available on demand.

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