The coach likened his team to a Datsun 1200 after the loss to Argentina but there is still grounds for optimism before they face the All BlacksMichael Hooper arrived just in time to see the sticker-licker pin the parking ticket under his wiper. It was the captain’s run on the eve of the Test against Argentina but Australia’s co-captain hadn’t run at all. Days before, in the Wallabies’ 43-12 walloping by South Africa in Pretoria, the 125-Test legend had tweaked a calf. It meant on the final lap of his storied career, Hooper would miss a home game farewell. With a rueful smile at the ticket, he copped it sweet – again. When your luck is out, your luck is...
Smashed in the Rugby Championship opener, the Wallabies have hit early trouble in their 2023 World Cup quest. Yet their coach says it won’t take much to get his side ‘back in the money’Eddie Jones said he wanted a “robust performance” from his new-look Wallabies. He got an insipid debacle. He told media he had coached his men to play like “mongrel dogs”. He delivered a mob of mewling pussycats. He promised fans this week was the first step toward a “smash and grab” on rugby’s greatest prize. Instead, 62-days out from the World Cup, a season that promised so much has kicked off with disaster.After all the hoopla about Jones returning as the saviour of Australian rugby, his Wallabies...
Research finds players who perform war dances reach elevated heart rates before their rivals. Is it an unsporting advantage?Should the Haka be scrapped from rugby? Let’s ask a different, less inflammatory question. If the New Zealand Haka and equivalents like the Fijian Cibi and the Tonga Sipi Tau provides an unfair advantage to those teams that perform it before kick off, should there be a limit on when and where those teams can do so?Research conducted this year at the University of Queensland’s School of Human Movement found that players who performed these war dances reached elevated heart rate levels moments before the start of the match. Those squats and lunges are the equivalent of undergoing a warm-up while the...
Australia had a spring in their step in Sydney but walked away with one of the more woeful implosions of recent yearsThe Wallabies’ trajectory this year has been, like their namesake, steadfastly up and down. Every ascent – the courageous 14-man win in Perth against England, the pounding of the Pumas in Mendoza, the demolition of South Africa in Adelaide – has been followed by a thud, as they come back to earth the following Test with a crushing defeat after a glorious victory.The inconsistency is infuriating for fans who crave momentum and want to see progress heading to next year’s World Cup on 8 September – now 12 Tests and 12 months away. But the Wallabies have not won...
Dave Rennie’s Australia have big issues to address as they reset for Rugby Championship clashes with South Africa and the All BlacksAfter a golden week atop the Rugby Championship ladder, the Wallabies are back in the doldrums after their 48-17 walloping by Michael Cheika’s Pumas on Sunday. On the strength of their courageous comeback win in the opening round, Australian rugby fans had dared dream the men in gold might repeat the dose in San Juan before marching over South Africa (as they did in 2021), then vanquishing a sickly All Blacks.But the fumbling nature of their game in San Juan and the brutality of the scoreline has snuffed that hope and now, yet again, there is only tunnel at...