SYDNEY : Rugby Australia released an ambitious strategy document on Tuesday with the bold aim of becoming the top rugby nation in the world over the next five years.
“From Green To Gold” aims to use the hosting of the British and Irish Lions tour next year as well as men’s and women’s World Cups in 2027 and 2029 as a springboard to elevate the struggling code to new heights.
The paper was released little more than a year after the Wallabies crashed out of the World Cup in the pool stage for the first time and a boardroom revolt saw the exit of chairman Hamish McLennan.
“You have to give the public and all of our stakeholders … some very lofty ambitions otherwise what are we aiming for?” Dan Herbert, who replaced McLennan as chairman at the end of last year, told a news conference.
“We’re aiming for excellence. High performance in particular is about excellence of winning.
“We want to get back to winning ways and we know that we’ve done a lot of initial work to create the platform to succeed. Provided the game remains united, I think we can deliver.”
The “From Green to Gold” strategy has three pillars -performance excellence, participation growth and promotion effectiveness.
The ambition of the document is evident in the goal of winning the annual Bledisloe Cup series against New Zealand every other year – something the Wallabies have singularly failed to do even once in the last 23 years.
It also calls for Australian teams to capture two Super Rugby titles over the next five years, bringing to an end a decade-long drought since the New South Wales Waratahs were champions in 2014.
Optimism about the situation of the game in Australia, where it has to compete in a crowded marketplace with the far more popular rugby league and Australian rules codes, has been fostered by the improved recent performances of the Wallabies.
World champions in 1991 and 1999, Australia are currently ranked eighth in the world despite wins over England and Wales on their November tour under new coach Joe Schmidt.
“It’s only the very start,” said Herbert, a member of the 1999 World Cup winning team.
“I think we’ve come a hell of a long way in the last 12 months but I still think we’ve got a hell of a long way to go. It will take a number of years before we get to that number one position.
“But I do think we’ve got the players and I do think we’ve got the people involved across the game, across the member unions, at Super Rugby clubs, to enable us to get there.
“But it does require us to do things a little differently to what we’ve done in the past. And we’ve started, we’ve set out on that journey, but we’re not there yet.”
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