The Times - UK (2021-11-11)

78 Thursday November 11 2021 | the times

SportRugby union

The Sale Sharks prop Bevan Rodd is

expected to be named in the England

squad to face Australia on Saturday

after being drafted in to replace Joe

Marler, who tested positive for

Covid-19.

Marler, the Harlequins loose-head, is

now in isolation and England’s players

and management were relieved to

discover that another round of PCR

tests had confirmed there were no

other positives.

England’s build-up to last weekend’s

69-3 win over Tonga was disrupted by a

positive test for the captain, Owen

Farrell, which meant that he missed the

match despite the result turning out to

be a false positive.

If Rodd makes his debut it will be an

early reward for the 21-year-old, who

opted for England despite being born in

Scotland and growing up on the Isle of

Man. Rodd, who is still listed among

Sale’s senior academy players, has

appeared in seven matches this season.

“All of my family apart from my dad

were born in Dunoon [on the Cowal

peninsula], but I didn’t really get

brought up in Scotland,” Rodd said. “I

moved at the age of nine months,

because my dad got a job somewhere

else. So I never really got that sense of

a Scottish upbringing, which would

make me an out-and-out Scottish guy.”

Rodd, who played for England

Under-16 and Under-18, is the latest

T

he breakdown

remains rugby’s

car crash despite

attempts to speed up

the delivery of the ball

and Sam Underhill is

preparing for another

intensely physical

Underhill looking

to turn over the

man he idolised

England v

Australia

Twickenham Stadium

Saturday, kick-off 5.30pm

TV: Amazon Prime Video

Radio: talkSPORT

England poised to blood

Chris Jones

Rodd, renowned for his ability over the

ball, could have played for Scotland

World Cup bid key

to Australia’s path

out of wilderness

T

he Wallabies may be

heading to Twickenham on

the back of a defeat by

Scotland and chasing a first

win against England in eight

Test matches but the mood in

Australian rugby is buoyant. For the

first time in at least a decade scarred

by executive mismanagement,

dwindling audiences, financial losses

and scandal, key figures in the sport

down under are optimistic.

“Australian rugby is coming back,”

Hamish McLennan, the Rugby

Australia chairman, said.

Central to Australia’s vision for the

future is the 2027 World Cup and its

bid to host the tournament for the

first time since 2003. Argentina pulled

out of the running, Russia and Qatar

were never really in it and the United

States, while officially bidding for

2027, has openly stated it would prefer

to stage the tournament in 2031.

Australia’s bid team are in London

to press the flesh and make their case

to the rest of World Rugby before the

final round of presentations on

November 24, with the final decision

to be made by the governing body in

May. Australia presents itself as both

a “safe pair of hands” — an argument

enhanced by the fact that Brisbane

has been awarded the 2032 Olympic

Games — but also a “fantastic

evolution for the game” because of its

commitment to channel funds

towards the Pacific islands.

Domestically, however, hosting the

World Cup would provide a critical

shot in the arm for a sport trying to

rebuild its reputation and regain its

foothold in the most competitive

sporting market in the world.

Australian Rules football has

made inroads into rugby’s

traditional markets, particularly

in Sydney.

Rugby union lost its way, an

issue represented by the

Wallabies jersey, which

had moved away from

the traditional golden

colour of Australia’s

glory days, watered

down over the years to

a weak yellow hue.

McLennan put a stop

to it and a vote was

held last year on a

permanent jersey

colour.

“We need to decide,” he

said. “The symbolism is

important. The constant

colour changes show the

madness of our inconsistency.”

Australian rugby union had been in

gradual decline, challenging times

studded by the odd surge of

electricity, such as reaching the 2015

World Cup final under Michael

Cheika, but that was not enough

to jolt it back into life.

Four years later, Australia were

defeated in the World Cup

quarter-final by England — their

seventh consecutive loss to the

old enemy — and Cheika left

his post, firing shots at

executives who were

mired in a legal case

after sacking Israel

Folau.

Emerging from

Covid-19, though,

McLennan reports

a sport showing

more than the

grass shoots of

recovery. At the elite level,

Australia have risen from

seventh in the world to

third, defeating South

Africa twice in the

Rugby Championship

and stringing together

five consecutive victories

before running aground at

Murrayfield. Participation numbers,

McLennan said, were rising again; so

too television audiences, which fell for

Super Rugby by 43 per cent in seven

years to 2020, helped by a deal that

has put Super Rugby matches on free-

to-air television for the first time.

“The support for the game is there

but what the World Cup would do is

put it on steroids,” he said.

“It would give us five years to

promote the game and also put a lot

of government support and

investment back into the game. It

would take it to another level. We

could survive without it, but it would

be a tremendously fabulous thing if

we did get it.

“We were very disappointed with

our performance at the last World

Cup. There were administration

issues that I won’t go into but the

game was eating itself alive. What

we’ve been able to do now is stabilise

the whole organisation and get some

momentum back into it. There’s a

new energy that’s starting to work.

“If we look at what has happened in

the last 12 months, our viewership is

up, crowds are coming back, kids are

playing at schools so we think we can

be a very competitive rugby nation

again. The fact we can beat South

Africa back to back demonstrates we

have the depth to do it.”

Andy Marinos, the former Wales

centre who took over as chief

executive in December 2020, said the

Wallabies were starting to receive

missives from rugby league superstars

keen once again to make the switch;

players, he said, of a similar stature to

Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri and Mat

Rogers, who starred in the 2003 team.

“We have got the Lions tour in 2025

and hopefully the World Cup in 2027,

with the Olympics [which features

sevens] in Brisbane in 2032,” Marinos

said. “Rugby league players are

saying, ‘We want to be a part of that.’ ”

There are longer-term concerns

about the type of player being

produced in Australia. Another source

close to the game said the system had

“produced robots” who were

incredible athletes but did not

understand the game. It will take up

to a decade to correct but Marinos is

addressing it and working towards a

centralised contracting model, similar

to the system used in Ireland and

New Zealand.

“It is about having a winning team

and we are aiming to be successful

right up from grass roots level,”

Marinos said.

Australia are now back in gold, the

permanent jersey design voted on last

year was anchored in the same rich

colour the Wallabies wore when

winning the 1991 World Cup, and they

see a bright future for the sport down

under.

Most immediately, however, they

need a win on Saturday against Eddie

Jones’s England — and that is likely

to be a much tougher task than

persuading World Rugby to vote for

Australia 2027.

Hosting 2027 event seen

as central to rebuilding

rugby union down

under, writes

Alex Lowe

How player numbers

lag behind

Adult participation in

sports in Australia

Source: AusPlay adult

survey 2020-21

Football

Aussie rules football

Cricket

Rugby league

Rugby union

1,205,700

621,500

571,700

167,300

148,500

Folau was sacked for saying

“hell awaits” gay people

Their inconsistent year

Australia have won seven and lost

five of their 12 matches this year,

including twice beating South

Africa, the world champions, in

September.

Beat France 23-21 Brisbane, July

Lost to France 28-26 Melbourne, July

Bt France 33-30 Brisbane, July

Lost to New Zealand 33-25 Auckland,

Aug

Lost to New Zealand 57-22 Auckland,

Aug

Lost to New Zealand 38-21 Perth,

Sept

Beat South Africa 28-26, Gold Coast,

Sept

Beat South Africa 30-17 Brisbane,

Sept

Beat Argentina 27-8 Townsville, Sept

Beat Argentina 32-17 Gold Coast, Oct

Beat Japan 32-23 Oita, Oct

Lost to Scotland 15-13 Edinburgh,

Nov