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‘They’d like to get three’: Dual World Cup winner on Wallabies’ Spring Tour
By Finn Morton
Two-time Rugby World Cup winner Tim Horan believes the Wallabies have already hit the pass mark that many set of them before the Spring Tour. Australia got the better of England and Wales before falling to Scotland, but Horan insists the men in gold will be hungry for a third win.
The Wallabies started their new era under coach Joe Schmidt with three wins from as many matches during the July international window, but things took a turn during The Rugby Championship as they suffered five losses from six fixtures.
Australia’s only win during TRC was a dramatic 20-19 win away to Argentina. While they showed signs of promise in their opening Bledisloe Cup Test at Sydney’s Accor Stadium, it seemed the Wallabies had firmed as likely underdogs before most of their four November Tests.
But there was a genuine rugby buzz in Australia after the Wallabies’ stunning 42-37 win over England at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, with winger Max Jorgensen gliding down the left edge to score the match-winning try in the 84th minute of that all-time classic Test.
The Wallabies kept their grand slam hopes alive with a dominant win over Wales a week later in Cardiff, but those dreams were dashed last time out by Scotland at Murrayfield. But not all is lost with the Aussies still eager to end their year with a win over Test heavyweights Ireland.
“I think considering where the Wallabies were prior to this tour, and a lot of people were saying just win two games and that’s a pass mark for the Wallabies and Joe Schmidt, I think they’d like to get three now,” Horan said on Stan Sports’ Rugby Heaven.
“The momentum that they’ve got, the style of game, the brand of rugby they’re playing, I think that’s what’s re-engaged the rugby public at the moment.”
When Dave Rennie was coaching the Wallabies, the visitors came close to knocking off Ireland at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium before falling to a narrow 13-10 defeat. That was the last meeting between the two sides, and that was Ireland’s third win on the bounce over Australia.
The Wallabies’ last win over the Irish was on 9 June 2018, at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. But fans have to look back a fair bit further in the history books to find Australia’s last win over the Irish at the Aviva Stadium, which was a 26-23 triumph on 16 November 2013.
Ireland have since emerged as one of the teams to beat in international rugby, with the All Blacks knocking them off top spot on World Rugby’s men’s rankings earlier this month. South Africa is now in pole position, but the Irish aren’t too far behind in second place.
Once again, the Wallabies are considered by many to be the underdogs for this weekend’s Test, but the players themselves aren’t counting themselves out. As world-class openside flanker Fraser McReight discussed, ending the season on a high is a big focus for this team.
“There’s nothing better than finishing, four of five weeks away from home now, with a win. We did it two years ago in Cardiff and it’s a great way to finish off the Wallabies’ season,” McReight explained in a Stan Sport interview.
“For us, it’s about really just not thinking about anything else but the Irish game this Saturday. It’s one more week, we’re putting in the effort everywhere we can whether that’s training detail or watching footage.
“Being narrowed focus for one more week, get the job done, and then we’ll go from there.”
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Latest Comments
The only benefit of the draft idea is league competitiveness. There would be absolutely no commercial value in a draft with rugby’s current interest levels.
I wonder what came first in america? I’m assuming it’s commercial aspect just built overtime and was a side effect essentially.
But the idea is not without merit as a goal. The first step towards being able to implement a draft being be creating it’s source of draftees. Where would you have the players come from? NFL uses college, and players of an age around 22 are generally able to step straight into the NFL. Baseball uses School and kids (obviously nowhere near pro level being 3/4 years younger) are sent to minor league clubs for a few years, the equivalent of the Super Rugby academies. I don’t think the latter is possible legally, and probably the most unethical and pointless, so do we create a University scene that builds on and up from the School scene? There is a lot of merit in that and it would tie in much better with our future partners in Japan and America.
Can we used the club scene and dispose of the Super Rugby academies? The benefit of this is that players have no association to their Super side, ie theyre not being drafted elshwere after spending time as a Blues or Chiefs player etc, it removes the negative of investing in a player just to benefit another club. The disadvantage of course is that now the players have nowhere near the quality of coaching and each countries U20s results will suffer (supposedly).
Or are we just doing something really dirty and making a rule that the only players under the age of 22 (that can sign a pro contract..) that a Super side can contract are those that come from the draft? Any player wanting to upgrade from an academy to full contract has to opt into the draft?
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You’ve got the perfect structure to run your 1A and 1B on a quota of club representation by Province. Have some balance/reward system in place to promote and reward competitiveness/excellence. Say each bracket has 12 teams, each province 3 spots, given the Irish Shield winner once of the bottom ranked provinces spots, so the twelve teams that make up 1A are 4 from Leinster, 3 each from Connacht and Munster, and 2 from Ulster etc. Run the same rule over 1B from the 1A reults/winner/bottom team etc. I’d imagine IRFU would want to keep participation to at least two teams from any one province but if not, and there was reason for more flexibility and competitveness, you can simply have other ways to change the numbers, like caps won by each province for the year prior or something.
Then give those clubs sides much bigger incentive to up their game, say instead of using the Pro sides for the British and Irish Cup you had going, it’s these best club sides that get to represent Ireland. There is plenty of interest in semi pro club cup competitions in europe that Ireland can invest in or drive their own creation of.
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