LONG READ Why the Aussie revival is for real and what it means for New Zealand

Australia has known a few false dawns in its attempt to rebuild itself as a premium rugby nation. The most recent was the Hamish McLennan-Eddie Jones era in 2023, when the former, in his role as chair of Rugby Australia hired the latter to be coach of the Wallabies and tried to convince everyone that their partnership would deliver unprecedented success.

What it delivered was just two test wins – against Georgia and Portugal – and global humiliation as the Wallabies didn’t get out of their pool at the 2023 World Cup, Jones was secretly in talks to go back to Japan and McLennan would soon be ousted as chair in a board revolt.

Prior to McLennan and Jones, there were plenty of other regimes that over promised and under delivered – the Michael Cheika-Raelene Castle era dramatically fell apart in 2019, while the Bill Pulver-Ewen McKenzie partnership ended with the latter resigning on the day of a Bledisloe Cup test.

Even knowing how many times Australia has previously believed it was on the mend only to discover its house was built of sand, the metrics being delivered in 2025 suggest that at last, the revival may be genuine and durable.

There are just too many good things happening to not believe that it has shifted its trajectory under Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh who took over in late 2023, chair Daniel Herbert who replaced McLennan in early 2024 and Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt who started last year.

This trio of leaders has had a dramatic impact, most obviously witnessed in the success Australian teams have enjoyed in Super Rugby this year.

The competition has produced all sorts of memorable statistics this year with record average points per game and improved ball-in-play numbers, but no achievement was more staggering than New Zealand’s teams being winless in Australia through 10 rounds.

The drought was broken in week 11 when the Hurricanes won in Canberra, an incredible shift when its remembered that there was a period between 2016 and 2018 when New Zealand teams collectively won 40 consecutive matches against Australian opposition.

This new-found resilience manifested in all four Australian teams occupying play-offs spots 10 weeks into the competition.

There is still scope for the picture to change significantly as the Hurricanes appear to be coming back to life, but the fact that the Reds, Waratahs and Force – the Brumbies have long been a play-off fixture – are realistic hopes of making the last six, is a vastly different scenario to what happened between 2022 and 2024.

The All Blacks don’t doubt that that they need a strong Wallabies and a strong Super Rugby to fulfil their ambitions and so, strangely, the lack of success Kiwi teams have had in Australia is being celebrated in New Zealand.

None of the Blues, Hurricanes nor Highlanders were happy to be sitting outside the top six so deep into the competition, but there is an appreciation in New Zealand that an Australian revival is something the game in the wider Pacific region needs.

For too long, New Zealand has lamented the lack of competition in the region and the need for Australia to get its house in order.

The All Blacks don’t doubt that that they need a strong Wallabies and a strong Super Rugby to fulfil their ambitions and so, strangely, the lack of success Kiwi teams have had in Australia is being celebrated in New Zealand.

Since Super Rugby became a Pacific-only tournament in 2022, there has been a constant lament in New Zealand about the loss of contact with South Africa.

At the World Cup in 2023, All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan said: “It was always enjoyable playing the Boks in Super Rugby, in my experience, because of those big forward packs.

You probably don’t have that sort of demand in Super Rugby as much as you used to.

“Super Rugby is probably not what it used to be.”

The not so veiled sub-text contained within this is that the Australian teams haven’t delivered a stiff enough challenge to truly test New Zealand’s best players and prepare them for international rugby.

But that now looks like a complaint that belongs in the past, and unquestionably, the collapse of the Rebels has helped drive this renaissance.

There was an effective fire sale of the Rebels best talent lasty year, and each of the four remaining Australian clubs were able to strengthen their squads.

But so too has there been an obvious upskilling across the board, perhaps a reward for the investment that has been made in coach acquisition and retention.

It’s a stretch to say that the Wallabies are now favourites to beat the British and Irish Lions, but they are certainly not being written off as having no hope the way they were this time last year.

Dan McKellar’s arrival from Leicester Tigers as head coach of the Waratahs has had an obvious impact, while Les Kiss, brought to Queensland from London Irish to start last year, continues to be transformational at the Reds.

Simon Cron is building a stronger culture at the Force since arriving in 2024 and the Brumbies have been Australia’s most consistently successful team partly because they have been willing to support Stephen Larkham over a number of years.

And then there is the influence of Schmidt at the Wallabies. He didn’t transform them last year, but they finished the season a better side than when they started and with 40-plus players having been involved with the Wallabies, that must be filtering back down to the Super Rugby clubs.

It’s a stretch to say that the Wallabies are now favourites to beat the British and Irish Lions, but they are certainly not being written off as having no hope the way they were this time last year.

The narrative hasn’t been all positive out of Australia this year, though, as there continues to be a stream of senior players heading offshore, while the national body recently announced a $36m loss in 2024.

But there is an argument to say – one that Waugh has promoted – that these two factors are linked and are representative of problems Rugby Australia no longer has.
There were significant one-off costs attached to winding up the Rebels, bringing the Waratahs and Brumbies under the RA high-performance umbrella and losing Harvey Norman as a sponsor.

Players such as Len Ikitau, Tom Hooper, Langi Gleeson and Rob Leota who are heading offshore, would have been making those decisions when RA’s financial future was uncertain.
But now, despite suffering such a heavy loss last year, RA believes it can wipe out its $67m of debt this year thanks to hosting the British and Lions tour and then build significant cash reserves by hosting the 2027 and 2029 World Cups.

The theory is simple enough – that if RA has greater confidence in its financial position over the next five years it will be able to make better offers to its best players and potentially not lose as many to offshore clubs.

There is a strong basis on which to believe Australia is now on a stable financial footing and that the Wallabies are better placed to rise up the world rankings, there does need to be tangible evidence of on-field progress.

What’s helping to promote the optimism about the finances is the improved broadcast deal that has been agreed with Stan Sport which will be paying $13 million more per annum next year than it currently does.

The deal also comes with performance bonuses that will be paid out the more the Wallabies win, leaving Waugh to explain the mechanics like this: “A really easy and simple way to put it is that it’s north of 30 per cent increase on the guaranteed amount through the next cycle, and if we hit our incentives then we’ll be north of 40 per cent.

“So, in terms of the actual guaranteed amount, I think to have an outcome of greater than 30% on the last cycle allows us to invest in the game, to ensure that we’ve got the right athletes, the right product to engage and drive greater value to both Rugby in Australia and all our supporters, but also to our broadcast department.”

But still, even though, there is a strong basis on which to believe Australia is now on a stable financial footing and that the Wallabies are better placed to rise up the world rankings, there does need to be tangible evidence of on-field progress.

Their four clubs need to make the playoffs and one of them, needs to push on to the final.

The Wallabies need to improve on the six test wins they posted last year, and as a minimum, take the Lions series to a decider, beat the All Blacks at home, finish above Argentina in the Rugby Championship and win more than half their tests in 2025.

They need to confirm that Kiss is taking over from Schmidt later this year and that the latter is going to stay in some kind of consultancy role.

And if the former is sanctioned in staying with the Reds in 2026 in a dual capacity as Super Rugby/international coach – then the club needs to find a high-profile successor to give players yet more confidence to commit to staying in Australia through to the 2027 World Cup.

If Australia can deliver to those benchmarks in 2025 then there will be no doubt that the two-time world champions are back at rugby’s top table.