Advance Australia fair

Rugby World Cup: With fewer players than other powerhouse nations, Australia's success can be attributed to a confluence of factors that make for the perfect rugby storm, writes Ciarán Cronin.

Start searching for an explanation for the success of Australian rugby over the past 20 years and you expect to be pointed in one principal direction.

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), the world-renowned Canberra-based coaching centre that offers programmes to elite athletes across 34 different sports, has always been put forward on this side of the globe as one reason the Wallabies, despite having significantly smaller playing numbers than the likes of New Zealand, South Africa, England, France and even Ireland, have managed to plant their flag at the summit of the world game.

Pat Howard, however, doesn’t buy the theory. The former Leicester Tigers player and coach, who was head of the Australian Rugby Union’s elite development unit in 2008 before leaving the game to take up the role of chief operations officer at a Brisbane property investment company, is of the view that the AIS, for all the success it has achieved for Australian sport on the global stage since its inception in 1981, hasn’t really been a significant contributor to the success of the Wallabies from the late 1980s onwards.

“The AIS has helped in developing athletes and to give a base in athletic training, weights, endurance and speed – but not as rugby players,” says Howard. “Canberra, the home of the AIS, is a three hour drive from Sydney and a one-and-a-half-hour flight from Brisbane, the two homes of rugby in Australia. It has benefited some of those who were Canberra-based, players like George Gregan, but I do not believe it has had a massive effect on the players or the 15-man game in Australia. There is a difference between preparing athletes and rugby players.”

How, then, to explain it? Besides the playing numbers – Australia has 85,283 registered male players, according to the latest IRB statistics, as opposed to, say, 614,787 in South Africa and 140,716 in Ireland – union ranks as the sixth most popular spectator sport in the country behind Australian Rules, horse racing, rugby league, motor sport and cricket.

In terms of overall popularity among home viewers, it is regularly usurped not only by the five sports listed above, but also by soccer, tennis, swimming and golf. In a nation that is clearly head over heels in love with sport, union represents an occasional fling, rather than a proper relationship. If not down to some magical elite development programme, how then has Australia, with two victories and one defeat in three finals, become the most successful side in Rugby World Cup history?

Howard highlights a host of different factors. The exposure of the country’s youth to a number of different football codes while growing up and the wide skills set this helps create is one reason offered; the regular exposure the Wallabies get to both New Zealand and South Africa is another. Added to that, Howard cites Australia’s overall lack of playing numbers – which he sees as a help, not a hindrance.

“All in all, we have had to maximise the player depth we have,” he says. “There are far fewer selection issues in general due to the lack of depth, and therefore good players get on-the-job ‘test training’ and get more time to succeed or fail.”

Howard’s point is made by taking a look at the Australian side that won the IRB under-19 World Championships for the first time in 2006. It is expected that four of that history-making squad – Anthony Fainga’a, Saia Fainga’a, Will Genia and David Pocock – will line out in the gold shirt at some point during the World Cup. Meanwhile, just two players from the Ireland under-19 squad who played at that 2006 tournament – Keith Earls and Cian Healy – are in line to play in this World Cup.

Howard’s explanations are clearly well thought out and logically sound, but if Australia’s modern improvement did not have its inception in the formation of the AIS, why has it only happened in the past 20-30 years?

“As with most eras, great players bring on very good players,” he says – in reference to the 1984 Wallabies, the first ever Australian side to complete a touring Grand Slam over England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

“That side was something of an anomaly. They had an inspirational and charismatic coach in Alan Jones, a solid captain [Andrew Slack] and very solid nine [Nick Farr- Jones], 10 [Mark Ella] and 12 [Michael Lynagh] to lead the game. That team gave rugby some presence in the schools and was followed by the 1987 World Cup, where some games were played in Australia. Not long after that came the 1991 World Cup win. The game here, therefore, has had some significant milestones to continue the notoriety.”

Coaching has also played a part. Once again, Howard suggests that Australia’s small rugby union base has been of benefit to it, forcing young coaches from the country to look abroad for opportunities, because there are simply not that many at home. Where most European coaches know European rugby and that alone, top-level coaches in Australia can impart a wide range of rugby experiences to their charges.

“As there is limited opportunity to coach in Australia, it becomes a necessity to look elsewhere,” he says. “This is not the case for the Europeans, South Africans or New Zealanders, who have far more professional coaching opportunities on offer at home. It’s a fact that, when Australia teams play against foreigners, there is little mystery to the playing side.

“The current national team has Robbie Deans, who knows the All Blacks so well; Jim Williams, who has Irish and overall European experience; Pato Noriega, a former Argentinean prop; David Nucifora, who was with Auckland and now the Brumbies; and Richard Graham, formerly with Saracens and now with the Force. It’s quite an eclectic mix and, between them, you have most of the major nations covered.”

That confluence of factors outlined by Howard appears to constitute the perfect rugby storm, something the former Australian international believes existed in Irish rugby a couple of decades back – minus one key factor. “The reality is, we are so close to New Zealand, and that, with the combined skills set of multiple football codes in a sports-mad country, has helped us to over-achieve. As the Irish are the only other nation with so many football codes, you just needed Wales to be dominant well past the 1970s [to replicate Australia’s success].”

But that, as we know, is just part of the secret.