Time to settle the debate over why New Zealand has so little love for the Wallabies once and for all.
Contrary to what you may have heard, it's not because they have the unfortunate tendency of tipping over our All Blacks in important games - like any time we meet at a World Cup.
Nor is it because we're jealous of Australia's economic prosperity, warm and weather and sandy beaches.
And it's certainly not because of Australia's annoying habit of claiming our best and brightest talents as their own (we don't care where Quade Cooper was born, by the way - he's definitely an Aussie).
The answer is much simpler: it's because there is not a lot to like about many of this current crop of players.
Much has been made of New Zealand's so-called "Aussie bashing" and at the focal point of our rage is charmless lout Quade Cooper. Every team needs a pantomime villain, but without the wit or aptitude for pantomime, Cooper is just a villain.
There's been enough said and written about the Tokoroa-born playmaker that it will suffice here to say that the fact Cooper has further encouraged the invective since arriving on our shores says all you need to know about his character. For egomaniacs like Cooper, any publicity is good publicity.
It would be forgivable if Australia's recent litany of larrikinism started and ended with their backline general, but it doesn't. Other recent events and incidents that have stuck in the Kiwi craw include:
- James O'Bieber joining the Melbourne Rebels, because it will enhance his "rugby brand".
- James Horwill taunting Aaron Cruden as he lined up the match-winning conversion for the Hurricanes against the Reds earlier this year. Hilariously, Cruden nailed the conversion and gave the Wallaby skipper the send-off he deserved.
Advertisement
- The disrespectfully over-the-top reaction to last year's win over the All Blacks in Hong Kong. So you scraped home in a meaningless Test at a meaningless venue. Congrats.
- Last year's Paris bar altercation between Cooper, O'Bieber and Kurtley Beale, which allegedly escalated from juvenile taunting of each other's unusual first names. Unbelievable.
It all smacks of that old chestnut of lacking respect; not just for the All Blacks but for their opposition and the game in general. You can see it everywhere; from Cooper's cheap shots on Richie McCaw, to Digby Ioane's well-rehearsed victory-dance, to the brashness and overconfidence that permates their press conference rhetoric.
The Wallabies can tear any team apart on their day, reckons Kurtley Beale. So can the All Blacks; they just have the restraint and humility not to boast about it any time there's a microphone in their face (ironically, for a team supposedly so full of self-belief, the Wallabies' constant need to talk themselves up perhaps hints at deeper insecurities).
We don't like trash-talkers and so we take particular satisfaction when the pro-green-and-gold opinions of Wallaby has-beens like Toutai Kefu and Bob Dwyer are exposed to for the ill-considered, jingoistic folly that they are. That's what made the lop-sided hammering at Eden Park in August so satisfying.
In fact, with a few notable exceptions such as Spiro Zavos and Greg Growden, the Australian rugby media is brimming with cheerleaders only too happy to perpetuate tired myths about McCaw's cheating and the All Blacks' perpetually-fading "aura of invincibility". Look no further than the three-man circus act that is the Fox Sports commentary team of "Clarkey, Kearnsey and Marto" for proof of that.
It didn't use to be like this. Past Wallaby teams and their media contingent have come here in good faith and enjoyed cordial relations with their Kiwi counterparts. The likes of Nick Farr-Jones, Tim Horan and Jeremy Paul are such gentlemen and students of the game that their opinions are regularly sought during New Zealand rugby broadcasts.
It's hard to imagine this current crop of Wallabies - on whom the merits of sportsmanship and the proud history of the game appear to be lost - ever ingratiating themselves to the New Zealand public in the same way.
Nor would they particularly care to, one suspects. After all, they're not here to win friends; they're here to win a World Cup. But that leaves their fans in a bind.
Wallabies supporters can do one of two things. Either they can pressure Robbie Deans and the ARU into reeling in some of their maverick players by voicing their concerns en masse.
Or they can accept that as long as their players continue to make themselves the target of ridicule, they're going to be tarred with the same Aussie-bashing brush.
*****
It's a shame to see international rugby going the way of many other professional sports in terms of overblown player celebrations.
It's bad enough that many of the All Blacks celebrate scoring with silly, indecipherable hand signals. But even that pales in comparison to the offensiveness of the totally-unnecessary swandive.
Try celebrations are nothing new but the swandive seems to have increased in popularity. It's become the trademark move of England wing Chris Ashton - perhaps forgivable given what a special occasion it is any time England crosses the tryline - but even then his showboating against a really brave Romanian team during the week smacked of excess.
But what really ground the gears over the weekend was French back Maxime Mermoz's celebrations at Eden Park. Trailing by 26 points, Mermoz's mildly fortuitous intercept try was never going to have any bearing on the outcome and his swandive and subsequent in-goal gloating seemed wildly misplaced given the drubbing his team was in the midst of receiving.
It may seem like a minor point, but put it this way - can you imagine the criticism an All Black tryscorer would cop if he carried on needlessly while the team was 20 points behind?
