Ex-Wallaby proposes scrapping Australian Super Rugby team
Eternally wounded from his own World Cup horror show, former Wallaby Stephen Hoiles believes less Australian Super Rugby teams is one answer to the country’s spectacular fall from grace.
The Wallabies are on the brink of a humiliating group-stage elimination after backing up their first loss to Fiji in 69 years with a record 40-6 drubbing at the hands of Wales.
Fans are calling for Eddie Jones’s head after the coach’s decision to pick the World Cup’s youngest squad backfired in the most extraordinary fashion.
Hoiles, who played just one Test after being a member of Australia’s previously worst World Cup campaign in 2007, reckons cutting one of Australia’s five Super Rugby teams would be a major help in restoring depth and credibility to the national team.
Between the Brumbies, NSW Waratahs, Queensland Reds, Melbourne Rebels and Western Force, Australian sides have won only a handful of games against New Zealand opposition in the past decade.
Battered psychologically even before taking to the field, generations of Wallabies players have failed for 20 years to win back the Bledisloe Cup from the All Blacks, let alone challenge for global supremacy.
“I feel for the players because some of these guys they’re not ready for Test rugby yet and that’s not to be mean or personal about it,” Hoiles told Stan Sport.
“And too many of them haven’t played well enough at Super Rugby. We’ve got five Super Rugby sides that have been (mediocre).
“The Brumbies have been the most successful over the last sort of five to eight years. The Tahs have had glimpses of success eight, nine years ago, the Reds 11, 12 years ago. Besides that, we’re in a failing Super Rugby system.
“So as much as we can look at the coaches and go, ‘yeah, let’s change that’, it’s the players that are out there that haven’t got the time in the saddle to be consistent.
“I look at this side – and I don’t like to use this word lightly – as a bunch of kids playing against men and we took our men out of this campaign and said, let’s put more kids in and let’s let them learn from this and they’ll get better from it.
“Sadly, they might not get better. I lost a quarter-final. That’s all I’m carrying. I’m scarred from losing a quarter-final. I was 26. I thought I’d get another crack. I didn’t. Some of these guys may not recover from this.”
Hoiles, now a successful coach who guided Randwick to a drought-breaking first Sydney club rugby premiership this year since 2004, says Rugby Australia has only itself to blame.
“I say it on TV, getting paid from TV – broadcast wants more games and more products and more teams – but more teams makes us unsuccessful and it hasn’t helped for a long time.
“I played at the Brumbies, I played at the Waratahs. If it meant getting rid of one of them to make Australian rugby better, I’d be all for it because we don’t have the depth and talent to play this many players at a professional level,” he said.
“All the Super teams are doing at the moment are signing foreign players, so every side’s got five to six foreigners. Club footy’s thriving, school footy’s thriving.
“When I was over there last week, world rugby’s pumping. It is a very healthy game at a global level. We’re just not successful at state and national level at the moment.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Kok will become a fan favourite
1 Go to commentsI am really looking forward to Leigh Halfpenny playing his first Super rugby game for the Crusaders Playing a long side his former Welsh and Scarlets team mate Johnny McNicoll.Johnny has been playing great, back in a Crusaders jersey.The attack has strengthened big time. Also looking forward to David Havili at 10. David is a class act, it also allows Dallas McLeod to remain at 12. A good thing.
1 Go to commentsIf he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
84 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to comments