Former Wallaby Dr Brett Robinson is the new chair of World Rugby. Last week, he announced details of the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia. So, who is this bloke anyway?
Fitz: Brett, congrats on your big gig. We’ll get to your big rig plans to go with it, but first up tell us a little more of your rugby journey.
Brett Robinson in Dublin, the home of World Rugby, after being elected as the games first chair from the southern hemisphere.Credit: World Rugby
BR: I came through the Queensland Reds system as a young guy, studying to be a doctor, playing as an amateur. And then, just as the game turned professional in the mid-90s, I became the first captain of the Brumbies, coached by Rod Macqueen. The team was established to strengthen Australian rugby and that decision to join them changed my life, while the team itself went on to be the powerhouse of Australian provincial rugby. In my time in Canberra, I became one of the founders of the Rugby Players’ Association, dealing with the rugby unions on collective bargaining etc, and it also gave me the platform to play 16 Tests for the Wallabies from 1996 to 1998.
Fitz: Thus, neatly book-ending your Wallabies career between the 1995 World Cup and the glorious 1999 World Cup!
BR: Indeed. I was actually called on as a reserve for the 1995 World Cup and was on my way to South Africa when they lost in the quarter-finals. And then, while I was selected in the Wallabies squad to go to the World Cup in ’99, I had to pull out during the first week of camp because of a shoulder injury. So it was not to be.
Fitz: At whatever level we played, all of us have a snapshot moment that our former teammates will pin on our rugby tombstone. George Gregan’s tackle, John Eales’ kick, Campo’s pass. What was yours?
BR: Well, the one I will remember on my deathbed was the second Test against the French at Ballymore in 1997, singing the national anthem in front of the McLean Stand, with my Dad there. Back in 1979, when I was nine years old, I had come down from Toowoomba with Dad to see my first rugby Test match, and now here we were again. That was my most special moment. But after my Wallabies career, I went to Oxford on a scholarship to do a PhD in clinical orthopaedics, played for two years for Oxford, won two “Blues”, and in my second year, captained them. So my very last rugby match was at Twickenham, beating Cambridge, and I left my boots behind.
Fitz: And did you practise as an orthopaedic surgeon? (If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that I broke many bones in my own rugby career, and I am only glad that none of them were mine.)
BR: (Laughs.) Not really. I still assist my brother in a few operations, but that’s it.
Fitz: So how did you get into rugby administration?
BR: When I got back to Australia from Oxford, I joined Rugby Australia running the high-performance unit – identifying and nurturing elite players – before stepping away into healthcare leadership roles in the commercial sector. Then I got on the board of Rugby Australia for a decade, became their representative on the board of World Rugby, and it went from there.
Robinson, then ACT Brumbies captain, leaves Bruce Stadium after the Brumbies defeated the Wellington Hurricanes in the Super 12 on May 23, 1997.Credit: Andrew Meares
Fitz: The former rugby coach Peter Fenton, once said, “rugby politics is either absolutely boring, or completely disgusting”. Your ascension to be the chair of World Rugby came after a fairly bruising campaign against you by your friend and mine, Abdel Benazzi, the great French back-rower. (Who was once sent off against the Wallabies, at the Sydney Football Stadium, for standing on my head, but don’t get me started!) He more or less said it was time World Rugby moved on from being run by the British Empire old boys’ club and, if you were elected, it would be just more of the same, protecting that turf, and not expanding.
BR: I like Abdel a great deal, but I am not one of the old guard as described. For one thing I am from the southern hemisphere, and I want change, I want growth, I want expansion around the world, and to put ever more resources into women’s rugby, sevens rugby, and also places like the USA. This is already happening. A few years ago I chaired a working group on behalf of World Rugby that ended up investing enormous moneys and effort into growing the game in the Pacific. We want the Fijians to be significant contenders for the World Cup, and the same with Japan. So I think it was a little bit cute to be positioning me as a protectionist. I’m not. I am for growth.
Fitz: Before growing the game, however, surely your most urgent point of order will be dealing with the growing issue of concussion, which is an existential threat to contact football everywhere.
BR: Yes, it is serious, but at least rugby has been truthful to that issue from the moment that we understood more about it. And we changed the rules because of it, and took many other measures. It was World Rugby which first developed the head injury assessment (HIA) platform that has gone global. World Rugby was also the first to be serious about lowering tackle height to give the head more protection. We’ve been serious about sanctioning players who tackle too high, coaching players to be safer, and we’ve been serious about monitoring on field, through things like these special mouth guards, the G-forces that are going through the brains of our athletes, as we’re looking at load management, through training and playing.
Brett Robinson playing for the Wallabies against Scotland on November 25, 1997, being tackled by Eric Peters.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
Fitz: Without me prying into your personal medical stuff, after your own long career in professional rugby, do you feel like you are in good shape from all the knocks?
BR: I think so. I mean, I do forget a name from time to time, but my wife would tell you that’s been a problem with mine since the day she met me! But even for those who do take damage there’s really good evidence to say that participating in social communities and being healthy and being active and being involved in sport has a big, big impact on your cognitive capability over many years. So there’s some emerging evidence that shows that those that play sport and those that play rugby, may be cognitively better off than those that don’t participate in community activities or sport because social isolation, anxiety, depression, not being connected, not having support networks, is as critical to people’s mental health and cognitive ability as many other things.
Fitz: While, I’m sure you’ll agree, there’s also a lot to be said for not getting your brains rattled too much in training and playing in the first place!
BR: Of course. But we really are working hard at it and one part of it has been the new rules about the height of tackles, and by January of next year, we will have videotaped about 40,000 tackles from a global trial we are conducting. And the early indicators are that the concussion volumes are lower right around the world than they were prior by just introducing that one change. This is a big issue, and I think rugby is a leader in this space, not a follower.
Fitz: OK, now let’s look at your global ambitions. As an Australian, you’ll be aware of the game called rugby league, I think? But as chair of World Rugby, when you survey the ground out there globally, does league even show up as tiny blip on the radar off your starboard quarter, or not at all?
BR: It’s there; we can see it, and I respect it, but it is not really a factor globally.
Fitz: But hang on, you must be terrified, and I mean TERRIFIED of the NRL going to start their season in Las Vegas again? I mean, I know they only got an average of 50,000 watching the game last year, but maybe this year they really will get the tens of millions they mooted and actually take America by storm. You’ll see! By some of the breathless accounts, they’re just about to swallow rugby whole, and they’ve got America enthralled and about to fall to their charms!
BR: [Laughing.] Look, with the greatest respect to rugby league, while it makes a lot of noise in this market, that does not really translate at all to the American market or global market, and … we are ourselves seriously well advanced in our plans to make a huge rugby impact in the US. Last year we had the All Blacks playing the Fijians in front of 50,000 in San Diego. We’re going to have more Tests in Chicago this year. And our eye is on the prize of 2031 and 2033 men’s and women’s World Cup. Meantime, we’ve got an Olympic Games in LA in ’28 where the US and the Canadian Rugby Sevens teams will feature incredibly strongly, particularly in the women’s game. The women’s game is our next frontier and, later this year, in September, we’ve got a Women’s World Cup in England that’s going to be magnificent. We’ve already had significant ticket sales for the pool matches and for the finals. And there’s close to 3 million women globally playing rugby right now.
Fitz: It seems to me that Women’s Sevens is the rugby engine pulling in an entirely new mob?
BR: In Paris, the Men’s and Women’s Sevens was phenomenal. We had 550,000 people attending over six days. It had a great atmosphere, and did just amazing numbers. We see Sevens as the vehicle to grow the game in markets where rugby is less popular, because Sevens is easier to understand, easier to play, and easier to pull teams together. And yes, for younger players, and particularly for women, it’s the global growth engine. And there’s this real tension in what World Rugby does because we have core markets that need to protect their share, while [what] we also need to do is unlock potential for growth through participation, but also commercial rights by taking the game to new markets.
Fitz: Enter, Australia, hosting the Men’s and Women’s World Cups in 2027 and 2031, for which you’ve just announced hosting cities. On that reckoning, I guess World Rugby is protecting a core market, while also taking it into new domestic territory, of places like Adelaide?
BR: Well, yes, we brought these World Cups to Australia to inject energy, commitment and opportunity. And one of the proudest moments for me in being elected to this role as World Rugby chair is the ability for me to tell that story of rugby’s global success here in Australia and announcing the details of a home Rugby World Cup, the third-biggest sporting event in the world. And it really is that global aspect that makes rugby different, and so fabulous, with 9 million participants around the world. We’re going to show Australia how big this beautiful game is, with 24 countries competing, over 250,000 inbound visitors and putting about $1.3 billion into the Australian economy. And the whole thing will be watched by a total, we hope, of well over the 800 million viewers around the world who saw the last World Cup.
Fitz: Goodness! That is nearly bigger than the NRL’s venture to Las Vegas!
BR: We are projecting it will deliver £500-550 million of surplus for the game, more than $1 billion, which we can then reinvest in the game around the world. But while this coming World Cup in Australia will be the biggest and the best and the most financially successful, the next one, in America, will be even bigger, and we are projecting a surplus of about £750 million.
Fitz: It’s surprising that the 2027 World Cup is going on at the same time as the mooted dates for 2027 Cricket World Cup?
BR: [Laughing.] I didn’t know that! For Australia, we were working on pushing our timing, not to be conflicted with the AFL and NRL grand finals.
Fitz: It was very impressive that, in this official Rugby World Cup announcement of where the matches were being played – Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne etc, – you noted each city’s Indigenous name – Meanjin, Gadigal, Naarm etc. Were you behind that?
BR: I guess it was just the spirit of the tournament. You know, we want to embrace Australia for everything that it is, and that Indigenous connection is powerful for us and for me, so we just thought we’d highlight the Indigenous names.
Fitz: So you didn’t get the memo from Donald Trump that woke is dead, and orange is the new black?
