GAVIN RICH: Threats to code in Australasia offset joy over Bok win

The satisfaction of seeing the Springboks make a perfect start to their Rugby Championship campaign coincided with a reality check on the threats to rugby union in Australasia.

It may have changed later on Saturday, but early on in the day the Kiwi websites appeared to be giving more prominence given to a rugby league clash between the New Zealand Warriors and the Dolphins than to the All Black loss to Argentina.

The league game was played in the same Lang Park venue (known commercially as Suncorp Stadium) where the Wallabies were outplayed by the Springboks the day before. Both games drew a full capacity 52,000 crowd, but we already know about the popularity of the League code in Australia.

The interest in union there has always been behind that in the 13-man game, but there has been a steeper downward slide in recent years as Australian rugby has struggled. The turnout for the Bok game was encouraging if you ignored the large contingent of SA expats, but on the evidence of the failure of the Wallabies to make the statement they needed to in their first big game under Joe Schmidt, the alarm bells should be intensifying for more than just Aussie fans.

A British and Irish Lions against the Wallabies is scheduled for next year, but at this point it looks like being no contest. Two years after that Australia host the World Cup and a miraculous Wallaby resurgence will be required if there is going to be the significant local interest that is spawned by the hosts standing a realistic chance of winning it.

While union has always been at best fourth in order of importance in Australia, that has not been the case on the other side of the Tasman Sea. However, while it’s unlikely the union code will slip from its top ranking in the eyes of the Kiwi public, the sport is in trouble there from a financial viewpoint and in terms of retaining the same level of fanatical interest that has been a given throughout history.

Tickets unsold

Maybe it is a case of Kiwis preferring to pretend that a loss for the All Blacks didn’t happen, something that up until recently was a rare event, is not a big deal. The priority given in the New Zealand media to the Olympics, which only happens every four years, was also maybe understandable.

But the primacy given to the Warriors’ two point defeat to the Dolphins in the Australian NRL relative to the focus on the All Blacks jarred a bit as it came in the same week it was reported that 10,000 tickets for the Test were still unsold a few days ahead of kick off.

The All Blacks have been so perennially successful in recent decades that this period of relative failure is probably regarded with the same level of alarm that greeted the much bigger crisis faced by SA rugby when the All Blacks put two successive 50 pointers past the Boks in 2016 and 2017.

Remember those days? Test matches in this country struggled to sell during that period, as indeed was the case for several years before that. Nowadays you have to be really switched on when the tickets for local Bok games go on sale or you will miss out. Even the recent clash with tier two Portugal in Bloemfontein saw a big turnout.

We should be wary as South Africans of getting too far ahead of ourselves. Memories of those dark days of 2016/17 for the Boks, and how well they’ve recovered from that period of failure, and more recently how the All Blacks turned a big defeat in Mbombela into a win in Johannesburg seven days later, should temper expectations.

Abject performance

It does look though after the first week of the Championship that a repeat of 2009, when the Boks dominated the Tri-Nations, is possible. If that happens it could mean a further serious dent to the All Black standing and the standing of the sport in their country.

However, ironic though it might seem, New Zealand’s salvation may lie in the hands of their historical rivals. The abject Wallaby performance was just a reminder of what the Kiwis have lost in terms of the competitiveness needed to keep their game sharp because of SA’s withdrawal from Super Rugby.

The planned regular proper tours that will include provincial and franchise games may be the lifeline that New Zealand rugby needs. Apart from exposing the players a level down from international to the SA approach and SA conditions (when they tour here), it should strengthen the already strong rivalry.

That is something that is surely much needed given that the Trans-Tasman Bledisloe Cup has become so one-sided that it can no longer be seen by Kiwis as the most important thing outside the World Cup.

And if the Boks draw ahead for a period, which they may well do, the All Blacks restoring the balance will pique interest in the same way as happened in reverse after the Boks broke the drought against the Kiwis in Wellington in 2018.