Campese: 'Too many league people in our game has destroyed our game'

David Campese is still trying to get his head around the Wallabies failing to make the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals for the first time. The legendary winger hails from an era where Australia conquered the world, starring in their 1991 title success and enthusiastically cheering them on to do it all again just eight years later.

For 14 years he lived and breathed being an international winger with a devastating strike rate, but those days are long since gone for the now 61-year-old. So long ago were his many achievements on the playing field that the team poster behind him celebrating one of their many feats was even in black and white.

It pains Campese what has happened to the once great Wallabies, that they now exist in a country where their brand no longer captures the imagination of the wider public and has fallen in significance compared to other sports such as rugby league and its thriving NRL competition.

He twigged what was going on no sooner did he return to live in Australia in 2018 after a decade in South Africa, an overseas excursion that included three years coaching at the Sharks in Durban. The authorities, though, simply don’t listen to his musings.

“I have actually spoken to them,” he told RugbyPass when asked what his relationship was like with Rugby Australia, who are tasked with reviving the game locally in time for its hosting of the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

“I said I have coached since 2018 in Australia, I know what the problems are: nobody in Australia knows who the Wallabies are. They have no idea about our culture or history. If you haven’t got culture or history you haven’t got anything. We won the World Cup in ’91 and ’99, the first country in the world to win two World Cups, and no one knows.

“We have got to celebrate our history and culture. If you look at South Africa after winning this year’s World Cup, I mean, they are everywhere. Even their social media posting was unbelievable whereas we have got nothing because we haven’t got that excitement, that enthusiasm that we had when we were pretty good in the amateur era.

“Unless you get an opportunity to live in different countries – I lived in Italy for 10 years playing rugby – you understand the world a bit better, you understand what the problems are, and in Australia, we have got no problems. Most of the problems are first-world problems. Instead, we try and make excuses.

“But the South Africans, (Siya) Kolisi, what they have done for that country is unbelievable. Have a look at the excitement, guys walking around in budgie smugglers. Only in South Africa can you do that but that’s what culture and history do. That is when you have got a team that everyone wants to support.”

Why don’t the officials in Australia listen to the maverick Campese? “Mate, I went to a government school, I didn’t go to a private school and rugby is a private school sport around the world. Look, I have always had my views. I’m not saying I am always right but even during the recent World Cup, the only people who approached me were Europeans.

“No one in Australia spoke to me. The only time they spoke to me was when we lost. Really? Why don’t you speak to me when we win? Look, it’s really frustrating but that’s life and you have just got to get on and do your best.

“We are in a bit of a pickle. It’s the first time we didn’t get to the quarters and there have been a lot of problems over many years, it hasn’t just happened because Eddie Jones turned up. I lived in South Africa for 10 years, coached Natal Sharks for three, and coming back in 2018 I went around the country and a lot of kids don’t actually understand or know rugby because it is not on free-to-air TV whereas Aussie rules and rugby league is.

“We have always had a massive problem in Australia. You have got football, rugby league and Aussie rules so we have always had that and the only way for rugby to win is you have got to entertain people. If you entertain them playing an exciting style of rugby, people will come so it’s a very natural fix.”

Campese sure knew how to entertain in his pomp. He was like the Pied Piper in the austerity 80s, generating great delight with his attacking play wherever he went, and the YouTube highlights reels of him scoring and goosestepping remain a joy to this day. That type of play, though, is no longer in vogue.

“It’s quite interesting. I was told on October 12 that a New South Wales board member’s main concern about Australian rugby is we haven’t got a war cry. You can imagine what their priorities are when we didn’t actually make the quarters. If you think about the amateur era, rugby was actually run very well.

“In the professional, most of the things that happen is that rugby league is very prominent in the world, we have got rugby league laws in our game which we never used to. It is very sad that we have got to look at other sports to try and improve our game. Our game was fantastic, why did we want to change it?

“I spoke to my son this afternoon who plays and he said what would you change? For me, the biggest problem is the ruck area. Bring back rucking. Because of rucking, you used to get forward momentum. I said to my son if you have a look at the Fiji-Portugal game, towards the end of the second half Fiji had a penalty five metres out from the try line.

“Two phases later they were at the 22-metre line, so where is the attack? It’s about defence. Unfortunately, when we went professional we went to rugby league to get all the rugby league defence coaches. The game is about defence, it’s not about attack. In Australia, rugby league now is played the way rugby union used to be played. Rugby union is the way the league used to be played. They have changed and we have got too many league people in our game and it has destroyed our game.

“My forte was skills. They never saw what I did off the paddock but they saw the performance. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t but the thing was we tried. Now if you look at the modern game, and even the last three games of the World Cup, a lot of the teams kicked the ball away because they had no options, they didn’t understand how to do a switch or a dummy switch or bring someone out of line.

“It’s all rugby league. What I was told (as a player) is you work your guts out from your 22 to the other 22 and don’t give the ball away. But now it is so easy, they just kick it away. The Wallabies against Fiji, I knew the dad of a player who was playing and he said that the son told him that the call came from the sideline, 'Kick the ball to them, wait for them to make a mistake, don’t attack'.

“That’s negative rugby, that is really negative. If you haven’t got the ball you cannot win a game and that is what I was surprised about the All Blacks as well in the final. The All Blacks panicked. I played the All Blacks 29 times, I won eight. I know the All Blacks.

“In that final (against South Africa), the last 30, they were going for lineout. Get the points, get out, which they normally do, and then come back. But no one has talked about the two missed goals they did, they just talk about the red card and how unfair. I have seen things against the All Blacks all my life where they have got away with murder, it’s about time they understand what the rest of the countries in the world feel like when you lose a player early in the game.”

Five Australian teams in the Super Rugby Pacific is another issue for Campese. “We have got too many teams. There has been a lot of analysis if you watch Ben Darwin and all these guys on social media. If you look at the ’91 World Cup, we had just two teams, New South Wales and Queensland, 13 players from each and we all knew each other, we played together.

“Randwick had five players in the ’91 World Cup team so familiarity makes it easier to play, so the less teams you have got the better you are going to be because you know each other, you play for each other and it just makes the understanding under pressure a lot easier.”

Speaking in association with BettingSites.co.uk, Campese refused to join in the Jones pile-on, the coach resigning 10 months after Rugby Australia unceremoniously sacked Dave Rennie last January to recruit him on a deal through to the end of the 2027 World Cup.

“Look, it’s a bit unfortunate. It’s a bit like football. In football, you get sacked, you’re in the circle, you get another job. Rugby is very similar. Eddie came back to Australia in early January, I don’t think he realised how bad Australian rugby was, he didn’t understand it, and he didn’t get people to talk to him about things.

“I just think what happened is that he tried hard but unfortunately we didn’t have the cattle, we didn’t have the skills and we didn’t have the experience. You cannot go to a Rugby World Cup with no number-one goalkicker in that role. Goal kicks win World Cups.”

Rugby is far from all doom and gloom, though, for Campese, who sure enjoyed himself in France. Take a look at his X account profile picture, the former Wallabies winger snapped on the River Seine amongst a who’s who of global rugby legends with the Eiffel Tower as the backdrop.

“That is one thing that we don’t really promote enough in our sport. Most of my friends are in Europe because I lived out there, played over there and you get to know each other. Even Will Carling. A lot of people don’t like him but we are very good mates, believe it or not, because when we get together we have a great time.

“That is what rugby is about and if you look at the Rugby World Cup that has just passed, you look after the game to how the players react to each other, there is no fight. It is just amazing how win, lose or draw; obviously, you are disappointed but at the end of the day it is a sport that you can only try your best and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work.”