So it’s play-offs time at the Rugby World Cup and, for the first time, the Wallabies are not involved.
The silver lining is the quarter-finals next weekend are all set to be cracking fixtures, and there are plenty of second-team options for Aussie rugby fans.
Via the much-criticised World Cup draw, two of the quarter-final match-ups would make for a worthy final. From the stacked pool A/pool B side, all four of the world’s top four ranked teams are involved: Ireland v New Zealand and France v South Africa.
The other two quarters will be, naturally, a step-down from those heights, but will hold plenty of interest for Australian audiences, with Aussie coaches steering a side in each of the quarters: Michael Cheika and Simon Raiwalui.
So who can Australians fans get behind for the rest of the tournament? Let’s run through the options.
Fiji
The Flying Fijians knocked the Wallabies out of the World Cup, but they’ll still be a popular pick for many Australians to cheer for in the finals. And not just because they’re playing England.
Fiji’s Temo Mayanavanua celebrates victory over the Wallabies.Credit: AP
Fiji have plenty of Australian connections, with former Wallabies forwards coach Simon Raiwalui leading the way as head coach. Raiwalui grew up in Tempe and played as a giant lock for Manly and Australian under 21s in the early 1990s – he is famous for having put Cheika to sleep one day in a Shute Shield clash with Randwick.
Fiji’s Australian coach Simon Raiwalui.Credit: Getty
Raiwalui went on to play for Fiji, and played and coached overseas. He was part of the Wallabies’ 2019 Rugby World Cup campaign, with Cheika, and joined Fiji in 2020; first as general manager, before being appointed head coach earlier this year.
Aussie defence coach Brad Davis is also on the Fijian staff and so is Daryl Gibson, the Kiwi coach who was with the Waratahs between 2014-2019.
Australia has been the beneficiary of a huge amount of Fijian rugby talent over the years, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t appreciate the joy and verve with which Fiji play and support rugby.
Ireland
The scenes of a green-washed Stade de France belting out the Cranberries’ Zombie sums up the intoxicating ride the Ireland rugby community are on at the moment. And they’ll have to make room for plenty of Australian fans – for a couple of reasons.
One is the fact there are a couple of Aussie-raised players in the Ireland team, in the shape of winger Mack Hansen and prop Finlay Bealham. Both are Canberra juniors who moved to Ireland to play.
Secondly, Ireland’s rugby represents hope for downcast Australian fans: If they can do it … sort of areas. Like Wallabies fans now, Irish rugby fans know suffering for a long time before their emergence as one of the world’s best teams.
Canberra junior Mack Hansen of Ireland.Credit: Getty
But in 2013 the Irish provinces banded together, centralised their professional rugby system and have since become a world power (with an Australian, David Nucifora, at the helm). It is the same reform Rugby Australia are aiming to finally bring in here, after a disastrous 2023.
But to nail being an Irish fan, you can’t forget to juggle the craic with being insanely nervous this week. Ireland have never won a finals game in any World Cup.
Argentina
Michael Cheika copped the odd brickbat at the end of his time with the Wallabies, but there is no disputing the guy is a world-class coach. In taking the Pumas to the play-offs, Cheika has become the first coach to make back-to-back World Cup quarter-finals consecutively with different nations; a feat other coaching greats have only managed with a break in between – Graham Henry (Wales/NZ), Steve Hansen (Wales/NZ), Eddie Jones (Australia/England) and Alex Wyllie (NZ/Argentina).
Michael Cheika is in his third straight World Cup play-offs.Credit: Getty
It’s even more impressive when you throw in a Rugby League World Cup quarter-final with a third nation, Lebanon, last year. He has also made three straight World Cup play-offs.
The Pumas also have former NRL star David Kidwell on board as a defence coach.
South Africa
The Springboks can be hard to love, with a ruthless efficiency and a power game that grinds rivals into the dust – particularly at World Cups. But they’re easy to admire, with the mad scientist Rassie Eramus pulling strings and trolling rivals, a ridiculously giant set of forwards and the emergence of exciting young backs such as Manie Libbok, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canan Moodie.
New Zealand
Can Australians really support New Zealand? The men in black have inflicted so much Bledisloe Cup heartache for so many years, there isn’t the natural shift to neighbourly support many around the world may imagine occurs. Secretly it does, perhaps.
New Zealand’s players perform the haka ahead of their Pool A match against Uruguay in Lyon.Credit: AP
Perhaps the biggest reason to support the Kiwis in the 2023 Rugby World Cup finals, however, is they’re trying to fight the good fight as far as playing an attacking brand of rugby.
France
Once a danger team at World Cups due to flamboyancy and unpredictability, France have turned into one of the favourites to win on home soil by reining in the former and dialling up the latter. Australians who love rugby and a good atmosphere will find it easy to get behind the French, who pack Stade de France with a joyous and colourful presence.
England
Given the 2020 census says almost a million people born in England live in Australia, there will no doubt be people in Australia supporting England.
Wales
Wales are a once-proud, but now crisis-ridden, rugby nation, with a multitude of challenges, constant concerns about the health of the game and a national team that lurches between respectability and defeats to tier-two nations.
Sound familiar? If so, Wales may be your team for the quarters. Like Eddie Jones, Warren Gatland returned late to the team as head coach, but unlike Jones removing experienced in favour of youth, the Kiwi leaned into the old-head path. And it worked a bit better.
If you want an idea of how far Dave Rennie’s team would have gone, Wales are a decent proxy.
Watch all the action from Rugby World Cup 2023 on the Home of Rugby, Stan Sport. Every match streaming ad-free, live and in 4K UHD with replays, mini matches and highlights available on demand.
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