At first glance, it’d be easy to look at 2024 and already call it another annus horribilis for Australian rugby.
Just seven months in, the team of Australia’s biggest market, the Waratahs, has won the Super Rugby wooden spoon and on Thursday, Rugby Australia announced it was shutting down the Melbourne Rebels after 14 seasons – on the eve of their first-ever finals appearance.
Given the last ten years of Australian rugby, however, which has included (but is not limited to) the Western Force axing, a Senate inquiry, the Israel Folau saga, two failed World Cups, the Eddie Jones disaster and the ill-fated Hamish McLennan era, it’s probably at the point where all the anni horribiles need to be collated. Call it a decennium horribilis.
Depending on where you stand, however, the Rebels decision is either just another example of Rugby Australia’s penchant for bone-headed calamity, or a necessary act of leadership to ensure the next decade is not a repeat of the last. Or possibly even the last decade, full-stop.
When the going was good for Australian rugby back in the mid-2000s, there was so much money in the game that Wallabies players were one day informed that under the terms of their CBA, Rugby Australia actually owed them more pay.
It was in this environment that expansion from three Super Rugby teams began, firstly with the Western Force in 2006 and then the........