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Australia's Super Rugby badge of shame

Jarrad Butler. (Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

NZ Herald

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One win from 46 games. That’s the combined record for Australian Super Rugby teams on New Zealand soil dating back to 2015.

Australian sides have lost 12 straight games in New Zealand dating back to round 16 in 2018 when the Rebels beat the Blues 20-10 at Eden Park. That win broke a 33-game losing streak meaning the Australian teams are 1-45 over the last 46 clashes.

Of those 45 defeats, 28 were by 13 points or more.

Over the same time period, New Zealand teams have played 54 times in Australia, resulting in 38 victories.

Since 1996, Australia sides have an overall record of 53 wins across 172 games, a win percentage of 23.3 per cent. Since the change to the conference system in 2016 their win percentage is 2.3 per cent (one from 42 games). Over that same time the Jaguares alone have had three wins in New Zealand.

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The latest loss in the run was this season, when the Waratahs were defeated in their round one clash to the Crusaders 43-25 in Christchurch. Next up it’s the Brumbies’ chance to break the sequence, when they face the Chiefs in Hamilton on Saturday.

The Brumbies have lost 13 straight in New Zealand and haven’t won in Hamilton since 2007. Their last win was a 29-21 victory over the Hurricanes in round 4, 2014.

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Brumbies lock Cadeyrn Neville has played more than 65 Super Rugby games, but he has never won in New Zealand.

“Beating a New Zealand side anywhere (is tough) and then doing it at their home ground … it’s going to be a big ask but we’re ready,” Neville told AAP.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8u6ckdA0rI/

“Their conveyor belt (of talent) isn’t going to stop any time soon so, even if they rolled out a team full of people I’d never heard of, I wouldn’t expect any less of them.

“At the Rebels, we had a win within grasp in Hamilton one year but we blew that, so I know even if it’s there for the taking, you’ve got to finish it.”

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Losing streaks in New Zealand:

Reds – 14 games – Last win v Chiefs in 2013
Brumbies – 13 games – Last win v Hurricanes in 2014
Waratahs – 10 games – Last win v Hurricanes 2015
Rebels – 3 games – Last win v Blues in 2018

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and is republished with permission.

WATCH: Hurricanes flyer Ben Lam will leave the club at the end of the Super Rugby season.

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Flankly 2 hours ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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