{"id":33867,"date":"2025-07-31T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33867\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T02:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T02:02:12","slug":"there-remains-a-culture-of-excuses-in-australian-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33867\/","title":{"rendered":"There remains a culture of excuses in Australian rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re still patting the All Blacks<\/a> on the back for beating Australia<\/a> 39-35 in Sydney, back in 2000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s regarded as one of the great test matches, with lovingly crafted television and print features commemorating the occasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even people who weren\u2019t alive back in 2000 know that Jonah Lomu<\/a> scored in the corner to seal an epic win for New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"VideoAUDIO: Rassie Erasmus on the intensity Australia will bring to the Rugby Champs<\/p>\n

The intensity and the physicality the Wallabies are experiencing against the British and Irish Lions could put them in good stead for their two-match tour against the Springboks in August.<\/p>\n

\"VideoAUDIO: Rassie Erasmus on the intensity Australia will bring to the Rugby Champs<\/p>\n

The intensity and the physicality the Wallabies are experiencing against the British and Irish Lions could put them in good stead for their two-match tour against the Springboks in August.<\/p>\n

We spend less time concentrating on the 24-0 lead the All Blacks coughed up on that night or their capitulation in Wellington<\/a> two weeks later, when Wallabies captain John Eales<\/a> kicked a penalty to win the match 24-23 for his team and retain the Bledisloe Cup for another year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was reminded of that series \u2013 and that era of Bledisloe Cup rugby in general \u2013 in the wake of Australia\u2019s narrow loss to the British & Irish Lions<\/a> in Melbourne, last Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Points Flow Chart <\/p>\n

British & Irish Lions win +3<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Time in lead<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

20%<\/p>\n

Possession Last 10 min<\/p>\n

80%<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The All Blacks weren\u2019t much good back then. They finished the 1998 season in disastrous fashion, were bundled out of the Rugby World Cup<\/a> by France<\/a> the following year and, of course, didn\u2019t regain the Bledisloe Cup until 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They played periods of good rugby, but tended to wilt under pressure. And, the more they coughed up handy leads, the more often it happened again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We all blamed luck, cheating opponents and incompetent referees for the team\u2019s continued struggles. Even the revered Wayne Smith found he wasn\u2019t suited to head coaching during this time, as results refused to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s mental frailty persisted right through until they finally secured the 2011 Rugby World Cup, as the rest of us became increasingly thinskinned and irrational.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Endless corners were proclaimed to have been turned, only for that alleged dawn to be revealed as a false one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The All Blacks never quite descended to the depths the Wallabies are plumbing now, but I feel like there\u2019s a valid comparison to be applied here. Along with a measure of sympathy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

Any number of people connected to rugby in Australia have made fools of themselves since the final whistle blew at the MCG on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I understand why, because New Zealanders were in a similar boat for such a long time, during the late 1990s and 2000s. We wanted the All Blacks to succeed so badly that we became part of the problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem still persists now, in many ways. Ever since the All Blacks lost to Ireland<\/a> in Chicago, back in 2016, they have only been a better than average team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not good and certainly not great and, yet, in often pretending that they are, we condemn the team to remain above average. It\u2019s C+ to B- season after season, because so many people can\u2019t take a breath and look at things objectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to knock the Wallabies and Australian rugby from this side of the Tasman. Just as it\u2019s easy for them to regard that criticism as smugness on New Zealanders\u2019 behalf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The truth is we have little to be self-congratulatory about over here, as I hope Argentina<\/a> and South Africa<\/a> prove to us in the coming weeks. Great All Blacks teams learn from their success, this one requires failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think they\u2019re learning at all in Australia, just as we didn\u2019t back in 2000. If you\u2019re up 23-5, as the Wallabies were at the MCG, you have to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt the manner of Saturday\u2019s 29-26 defeat was disappointing and \u2013 if you care deeply about the Wallabies and are desperate for signs of improvement \u2013 it\u2019s maybe natural to fixate on the finale rather than the surrender of what should\u2019ve been a decisive lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We spent years doing that here and it doesn\u2019t help. When the All Blacks coughed up a 24-10 advantage, with seven minutes remaining, against France in the 1999 Rugby World Cup semi-final, New Zealanders didn\u2019t take that on the chin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No, they joined the chorus of All Blacks forwards complaining that the French had been a bit rough with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can wallow in misfortune \u2013 as Australian rugby folk are and their Kiwi counterparts once did \u2013 or you can get on with getting better. Winners march on, while losers stew about the injustice of it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I think the Lions will march on in Sydney this week. I think for all the Australian talk that it was only refereeing that did them in, the tourists will show the true gulf that exists between these sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There remains a culture of excuses in Australian rugby and they won\u2019t improve while that remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re still patting the All Blacks on the back for beating Australia 39-35 in Sydney, back in 2000.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-33867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}