Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Australian Rugby’s 10-year search for a Wallaby flyhalf – a systemic failure to identify and develop an international 10

Australian Rugby hasn't produced an international 10 this decade.

With news of Bernard Foley’s re-commitment to Rugby Australia, Wallabies fans can breathe a short sigh of relief. He will, however, re-assess his position following next year’s showpiece tournament, which does nothing to solve the looming problem of a post-World Cup Wallaby exodus.

ADVERTISEMENT

The lack of depth in the halves, and in particular at 10, is a serious issue. Just who will eventually replace Foley?

The pipeline of Australia’s future, the national under-20 side, reveals an alarming amount of players that have failed to kick on since 2011. Since that year, only one flyhalf picked at the under-20 level has gone on to wear the Wallabies number 10-jersey, Reece Hodge, for one test against Japan.

2008 was the last and most fruitful crop for the Wallabies – Kurtley Beale and Quade Cooper were selected in the age grade side while James O’Connor and Matt Toomua were also picked but unable to get age dispensation.

Toomua then played the 2009 and 2010 Junior World Cup campaigns, while James O’Connor became the second youngest Wallaby ever in 2008. Toomua is the last Wallaby flyhalf to come through the junior representative side outside of Hodge’s anomaly. Bernard Foley came through the Sevens programme in 2009 and wasn’t an under-20 rep at all.

Of Toomua’s 24 test starts just six have been in the 10-jersey, so it is a stretch to say he is a true flyhalf, with inside centre being his calling at the professional level.

This astonishing run of ‘misses’ could be due to a myriad of reasons but undeniably highlights a systemic failure of Australian Rugby to produce a player, in possibly the most important position on the pitch, with the necessary skills to succeed at the highest level.

ADVERTISEMENT

After a decade of failing to identify and develop a Wallaby flyhalf, it might just be time for everyone in Australian Rugby from the top-down to re-evaluate the position, re-value what skills are required and change the thinking. Whatever they think works, quite simply doesn’t.

The conservative, stifling nature that has crept into Australian coaching is failing to produce a game-changing 10, with an over-riding preference for ‘safety’ and textbook shovellers at the expense of finding a way for players with natural attacking instincts to flourish. If Damian McKenzie grew up in Australia, in all likelihood he would not be picked.

Either the right talent has not been identified in the first place or the development of the players has been hamstrung by the system. A balanced mix of both scenarios is a high probability.

The list of those who have donned the 10 jersey for Australia at under-20 level in the last 10 years is comprehensive – Quade Cooper (2008), Kurtley Beale (2008/9), Matt Toomua (2009/10), Jono Lance (2010), Ben Volavola (2011), James Ambrosini (2011), Kyle Godwin (2012), UJ Seuteni (2012), Jack Debreczeni (2013), Reece Hodge (2013), Jake McIntyre (2013/14), David Horwitz (2014), Andrew Deegan (2015), James Dalgleish (2015), Mack Mason (2016), Nick Jooste (2016), Jordan Jackson-Hope (2016), Hamish Stewart (2017) and Jack McGregor (2017).

ADVERTISEMENT

After 2010, the conversion rate even to Super Rugby has been frightening.

Volavola played just 19 Super Rugby games for Australian franchises before choosing to represent Fiji and becoming ineligible.

Kyle Godwin has played the most Super Rugby with 76 caps, but most as a midfielder and is now in Ireland with Connacht.

Reece Hodge has 42 caps for the Rebels, but mainly as a utility back. He is also seen as a makeshift 10 who can provide cover rather than as a genuine flyhalf.

Only Volavola (19 caps), Godwin (76 caps), Debreczeni (52 caps), Hodge (42 caps), McIntyre (24 caps), Horwitz (27 caps), Mason (2 caps), Jackson-Hope (7 caps), and Stewart (18 caps) have Super Rugby experience.

Debreczeni, the most experienced genuine flyhalf prospect, is now playing for Northland in the Mitre 10 Cup, with no further contract with his former Melbourne-based side. With over 50 Super caps, that investment has been seemingly futile for Australian Rugby but he continues to impress on the Mitre 10 circuit, showing glimpses of what he could become.

A list of under-20 halfbacks is similar – Eddie Bredenhann, Matt Lucas, Nick Frisby, Jock Merriman, Ben Meehan, Waldo Wessels, Joe Powell, Angus Pulver, Scott Gale, James Tuttle and Harry Nucifora.

It is astounding then, that the frontrunner to succeed Will Genia as the next Wallabies halfback has emerged as Jake Gordon, a player with no rugby education in Australia’s rep pathway.

Gordon’s development has solely been in the Shute Shield, with roughly three years of club rugby before a breakout NRC season saw him force his way into the Waratahs. Without the advantage of receiving professional coaching for most of his development years, he already looks to be the second-best halfback in the country.

This long-term systemic failure has left Australian Rugby with an impending cliff ahead when the generation of players from the late noughties retires or move overseas for good. At the moment there are no other established flyhalf options with proven ability at Super Rugby level.

Hamish Stewart has been touted as the future but has been playing for the Reds too soon, the Brumbies have preferred Kiwi Wharenui Hawera in Christian Lealiifano’s absence and the Rebels on-and-then-off again relationship with Jack Debreczini continues, but looks to now be off with Quade moving south. The Waratahs have been grooming Mason for Foley’s departure.

After a decade of ill-thought out planning, investment, and development of flyhalves the odds of Stewart and Mason carrying the torch and reaching where they need to doesn’t seem likely. The Wallabies 2019 Rugby World Cup hopes look slim, and when you look past that it only looks worse, with testing times sure to be ahead.

In other news:

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

287 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones
Search