Wallabies legend Matt Burke has highlighted the importance of forward dominance, which he feels is crucial for Australia to become one of the top teams at international level again.

The 2025 international season was a topsy-turvy one for the Wallabies as they only won four out of 14 Tests played during the year.

They started their campaign with a narrow victory over Fiji in Newcastle and then lost successive Tests against the British & Irish Lions in Brisbane and Melbourne before finishing off that series with a win over the famous touring team in Sydney.

The Wallabies then caused arguably the biggest upset of the year when they claimed a shock victory over the Springboks in their Rugby Championship clash in Johannesburg, before beating Argentina in that competition in Townsville.

However, the rest of the Rugby Championship saw Australia suffering defeats to the Boks and Los Pumas in the return matches in Cape Town and Sydney respectively before they lost both their Tests against the All Blacks in Auckland and Perth.

Lost all their end-of-year tour Tests

Joe Schmidt and his troops then headed on their end-of-year tour but, despite being competitive in all their matches, they failed to register a win as they were beaten by England, Italy, Ireland and France.

Burke, who was part of a very successful Australian side and made 81 Test appearances for them between 1993 and 2004, believes the Wallabies are on the right track with head coach Schmidt.

The New Zealand-born coach is set to step down from his position after next year’s mid-year internationals, with current Queensland Reds boss Les Kiss replacing Schmidt at the Wallabies.

“I take you back to before the Irish game (on Australia’s end-of-year tour), there was a lot of pressure on the Aussies to do it,” Burke told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.

“And I was sitting there (on) commentary with (ex-Wallabies captain) Michael Hooper and we chatted beforehand and he basically turned around and looked at me and goes: ‘Mate, you blokes ruined it for us. You won everything, like how are we supposed to follow that?’

“And we did have a really good era, I think we had every trophy in the cabinet for that period of time there from World Cups to Bledisloe to Tri-Nations and (against) the individual countries and there was a consistency in amongst the team.

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“And the hard part about, and I imagine it’s harder again still as we get bigger, stronger, faster, is to be able to create that team that is able to back up and we saw it on this tour that you have to be able to have a squad now that backs up and changes personnel throughout the games.”

Burke, who is the current president of the New South Wales Rugby Union, gave his verdict on the Wallabies’ problem positions, and while he admitted that his country are struggling to find a world-class fly-half, he feels it’s more important for them to produce top quality forwards.

High praise for Will Skelton

“The biggest one is like a Will Skelton, when he came down,” explained the former full-back.

“His influence in that Lions series was huge. Massive, absolutely massive and when he held off three of those Lions blokes, sort of, by the shirt collar and just sort of rag-dolling them, Itoje and crew, I just thought he just does not take any, you know what, so that’s what they need and muscling up with big players is such a massive key these days.

“If you don’t have that strength up front, you may have skill but if you don’t have that size and strength, you’re underdone and that’s where we then look at the Boks, for example, who are just so locked in with that sort of strength up front.

“They may not play the best game at times but they play a power game and I suppose the biggest question that we get here is we haven’t had a number 10, we can’t get another 10, we’re not developing number 10s.”

Burke emphasised the importance of forward dominance to any team and also identified his “biggest gripe” with the modern game.

“I think we are developing number 10s but until we get those blokes up front, which is such a difficult thing to do, to compete with those guys at the front there, that 10 role, remember when you’re playing as a kid, if the forwards go forward, the world’s easiest position is playing the backs and a number 10 when you’re going forward,” said the 52-year-old.

“If you’re going back, life’s tough, especially under the new rules or new laws that have sort of come in and the speed of the game now, the defence that is just off the line so far, actually, that’s my biggest gripe, no one is onside anymore, no one is onside anymore.

“It is difficult enough to apply.”

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