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Bring back Folau? RWC winning Wallaby coach's radical, wrecking ball suggestions for saving rugby in Australia

Rugby Australia have announced further job cuts.

Bob Dwyer, the World Cup-winning coach who helped turn the Wallabies into a major rugby force, has launched a withering attack on Rugby Australia, insisting he “couldn’t care less” if the governing body declares bankruptcy. Dwyer is also calling for an end to players being exiled from Test selection when they take up lucrative contracts abroad.

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Under what is known as Giteau’s Law, currently a player can only be considered for Test selection if they have played 60 times for the Wallabies. However, Dwyer sees no merit in this artificial rule and wants Australia to follow South Africa’s lead and pick the best players regardless of where they are based.

Dwyer, the man who led Australia to the 1991 Rugby World Cup, told RugbyPass: “You would have players at the top of the game being paid by someone else and you get them released at agreed times. I reckon that is the best deal you could have and all we need to do is what South Africa have done and consider anyone for selection, and that would be perfect. Would South Africa have won the World Cup without their offshore players? Not a hope in Hell.

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Watch: Episode 2 of Investec Super Rugby Isolation Nation. 

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Watch: Episode 2 of Investec Super Rugby Isolation Nation. 

“The Giteau Law is not a law and is just a decision that was made and it is changed all the time. There are heaps of guys who could then be considered.”

Rugby Australia are predicting massive losses of around £60m that could see them unable to survive and they are reportedly even struggling to pay the controversial award of millions of dollars to former Wallaby full-back Israel Folau, who was sacked for his views on homosexuality. “Israel Folau is playing league – and what a fiasco that was for RA. I would have a chat to Folau about coming back because we have players currently in the game who have committed various offences,” said Dwyer.

Against a backdrop of increasing demands for Raelene Castle, the RA CEO, to stand down, Dwyer believes the game has been “horribly badly run” and that it will take something as dramatic as the total financial collapse of the Union to force what he believes is a much needed reset for the sport in Australia. Castle has instigated cost-cutting at RA which has seen her own salary slashed by 50%, staff wages drop by 30% and 75% of staff stood down until July 1.

Dwyer has tried for years to make RA understand the damaging disconnect that has been created between the clubs and the Union. He wants the current board to be ejected and people with a true understanding of how rugby is run in the country given the task of reviving the ailing governing body.

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The World Rugby Hall of Fame member, who also coached Leicester and Bristol before returning to Australia, recently stood down after eight years as President of the famous Randwick club where he helped guide the careers of Eddie Jones, Michael Cheika, David Campese and Simon Poidevin.

Dwyer’s passion for the game remains as strong as ever and he added “I thought some years ago that we would have to hit rock bottom before change was forced upon the Rugby Australia administration – I mean the board who supposedly run the show. In the last six or seven years they have really taken their eye off the ball and it has been horribly badly run and they have set about changing the make-up of the board from constituent bodies (the states) to a much smaller representation along with so called independent board members. Now that has become a farce.

“What I see happening is that RA will be bankrupt, the board will have to resign and we can go back to having a board with proper representation of the people who are the game. Before last week there were 150 employees at RA running the men’s and women’s national teams and the sevens. I haven’t got the foggiest idea what all those people do.

“What RA failed to understand is that they are Rugby Australia, not Rugby Wallabies, and if you don’t get that then what do you understand about the game? You are supposed to be running the game in the country and the Wallabies are a product of how well you run the game. The absolute stand point is that the Wallabies are not Australian rugby – they are the pinnacle of Australian rugby.”

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Dave Rennie, who has been appointed to replace Cheika as Wallaby head coach, is reportedly ready to walk away if Castle is ousted from her role with former Test hooker Phil Kearns supposedly being lined-up as the new CEO. Dwyer dismisses the potential loss of Rennie, stating: “If Dave Rennie wants to go because Raelene is going then that’s OK. We will get someone else. He seems to be a very decent person but we don’t want someone to stay coaching the team because he likes the CEO. What has that got to do with anything?

“I have tried for years to explain to the senior members of RA that the Wallabies or Super Rugby are not the sport of rugby in this country – that is the outcome of the sport of rugby. Club rugby in the two strongholds of Brisbane and Sydney is currently going brilliantly. It’s phenomenal with record crowds at the end of season matches plus crowds getting bigger. One of the Brisbane clubs had an open day for the new season from Under 7 to seniors had 2,500 kids registered.

“No matter what happens, rugby in Australia will never cease to exist.”

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fl 1 hour ago
Significant step up in rankings possible for England and Italy

"Their attack and defence were both woefully disorganised with most of their penetration coming from solo efforts usually by Smith."

Maybe these things are related. Maybe England should select a 10 capable of organising an attack, rather than just going it alone.


"it's still not at all clear how England plan to attack or defend and after however long Borthwick has been in charge, that's not good"

England were poor in the first three games of the six nations last year, but their attack by the end was very impressive, given they only spent about a month properly developing it. That's an incredible rate of improvement that then immediately stalled: why? The coaching staff didn't change, and most of the personell didn't change. The only major difference was that the best game management 10 England had was replaced with someone who had previously played a bit-part role at 15 or finishing off games at 10 when opposition backlines were already tired.


"Borthwick knows England need to be able to make use of players like Smith and use their backs to convert territory into tries but it's alien to him and consequently England have no identity anymore."

to be fair, England did convert possession into tries in the autumn, the problem was that their attack was so disorganised it led to them (i) getting completely destroyed on the counter attack, and (ii) failing to retain possession, and so spending far too much time on defence - inevitably leading to missed tackles in the fourth quarter.


I'm also not sure what you mean by "players like Smith". Smith is one guy who forces a chaotic attacking style onto the team. Steward, Freeman, Roebuck, Feyi-Waboso, and England's vast plethora of opensides (I know you don't rate the Currys, but there's also Earl, Underhill, Pepper, when they are fit) would probably benefit more from a game built around contestable kicking and defence. Mitchell, Spencer, and JVP are probably better suited to that too. I'm not saying that England shouldn't build an attacking style, I'm just pointing out what I see as an extremely unbalanced framing that treats Marcus Smith as the main character of English rugby. My own personal view is that England should, depending on opposition and game state, switch between the uber-defensive system that they used against SA in the RWC, and a structured possession based attacking system similar to what Ireland have used for the past few years. I think Ford and Fin Smith, as well as almost the entirety of Englands options in the midfield and back three would do well in both of those systems, but Marcus Smith wouldn't.

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