16 September 2025
Good Morning G&GRs and welcome to another Tuesday’s Rugby News. It’s a dour week for Wallaroos and Wallabies fans, however, Super Rugby AUS kicked off over the weekend, so two Australian sides got wins.
Wallaroos out of the Rugby World Cup
As usual there’s always rugby news to cover, so let’s get into it. I’ll start with some thoughts on the Wallaroos campaign at the World Cup, including their quarter final loss to Canada, a few comments about the Wallabies and a brief summary of the results of the Super Rugby AUS games.
The Wallaroos bowed out of the World Cup on Sunday morning after being beaten by Canada, 46-5. The result wasn’t surprising with the second ranked Canada heavy favourites before the game, and they living up to that billing.
You have to give a lot of credit to the Wallaroos, they’ve improved since the last World Cup and are showing the benefits of finally becoming professional athletes but, unfortunately the top teams are also getting better and the gap may not’ve closed very much.
An exciting thing about the Wallaroos is the number of younger players in the squad, including Desiree Miller (22), Tabua Tuinakauvadra (23), Faitala Moleka (20) and Caitlyn Halse (18) and the impact those players had on the positive performances of the team. Add Kaitlan Leaney and Piper Duck (both 24), and Maya Stewart (25) and there’s a real core of youth that’s gaining experience at provincial and international level and should be featuring at the home World Cup in 2029. But Rugby Australia is going to have to find a way to keep them in the game, get them more experience, and then attract more talent to the game here in Australia.
How Australia strikes that balance is the question. More local games will be important, maybe another option would be to encourage and allow players to get experience in bigger leagues around the world, it has to be good for player development to spend time in different setups, learn a bit about the world and still be available to play for Australia. The Canadians have had success with combining their 15s and 7s programs, and Australia is starting to see more pay from that with Tia Hinds and Charlotte Caslick standing out this year.
Anyway, what we learned at the World Cup is the Wallaroos have great skills, fitness and don’t give up. Unfortunately, they ran into two very good teams in England and Canada. Both of these teams were relentless in their defensive pressure and were able to shut down pretty much every thing that Australia threw at them. While Australia have some very good players and can create opportunities, they just weren’t able to change the attacking picture enough to bother the defence from England or Canada; they couldn’t find an effective way to counter the rush defence of both sides.
In contrast, both England and Canada were able to vary their game and create opportunities to put the Wallaroos under pressure and ultimately scored seven tries each against the Aussies. The difference is full time coaching, experience and the number of games played against quality opposition. I believe that the Wallaroos will continue to improve, and can’t wait for it happen.
Until then, congratulations from us here at Green & Gold Rugby for the making it to the World Cup, getting to the quarter finals, and putting in performances that you should be proud of, because we as a group are proud of the way you played. And just as importantly, you looked like you were having fun on tour, you and your fans and families were wonderful ambassadors for our great game.
Wallabies
There’s been plenty written about the performance of the Wallabies against Argentina on the weekend, and it’s not worth going over in any great detail, but what has been disappointing is some of the negativity in the media following the game, criticising the coach and young inexperienced players for making mistakes and not being world beaters.
It was Tane Edmed’s turn this week to cop criticism for not being world class in his third or forth test, against a very good Argentinian side, just like Tom Lynagh was criticised for his performance last week. We are following a well trod path in Australia of hyping up then discarding flyhalves because they don’t play like seasoned internationals in their first 10 test matches. We’ve done it to a generation of flyhalves since Bernard Foley and Quade Cooper, talking them up as the next best thing and then sending them to purgatory when they slip up, not fail, but just aren’t world class yet. It almost feels like Noah copped the blame for the Wallabies being sub-par across the board a few years ago.
How do we expect young players to grow and mature in the most difficult position on the field if we don’t offer them support and encouragement? Yes, they should have more time at Super Rugby and more games to grow, but we don’t have that luxury with the current format, so some of that development is happening in test matches. Tom Lynagh wasn’t perfect in Townsville and Tane Edmed wasn’t perfect in Sydney either, but, they’ll learn from their experiences and should be given more opportunities to improve.
Squad depth and rotation is interesting as both LSL and Hunter Paisami looked a bit rusty at times against Argentina in their first games for a while. I can understand the desire for consistency in the match day squad to build combinations; however, that needs to be balanced by having a broader squad of players who play regularly and can slot in when there’s injury.
It is also disrespectful to Argentina who did a lot of good things on the weekend: they kicked their early opportunities, caught every high ball that came near them, hit rucks with purpose and took advantage of our poor discipline. Actually maybe their pressure caused some of our poor discipline, which led to points and pressure. And, how good was this guy.
The Wallabies have two weeks to lick their wounds and prepare for New Zealand, who you would expect would be trying to make a real statement in the next game they play. It should be a fascinating test match at Eden Park,
It seems like everyone has jumped on the player ratings bandwagon, and I haven’t watched the game again to do player ratings, so I’ll leave it up to other judges this week. AllyOz, if you’ve had a crack at it, please feel free to post something in the comments.
Super Rugby AUS
It was good to see the first round of Super Rugby AUS kick off over the weekend with the Tahs taking on the Force on Friday night at Pittwater Park and the Reds hosting the Brumbies on Sunday afternoon at Ballymore.
Tahs v Force
The Tahs had a tough night out and were soundly beaten by the Force 17-3. It was scrappy and the quality of the regular Super Rugby players in the Force side was the difference. It was good to see some new players in both teams, and the wider squads will be better next year for the experience. Mac Grealy continued his good form from Super Rugby this year, he as a big part of the reason why the Force got he win.
Reds v Brumbies
The Reds hosted the Brumbies on Sunday afternoon at Ballymore, and the teams put on a show in the sunshine. The Reds took the win 36-26 including a late try and conversion to take a bonus point away from the Brumbies. Tim Ryan racked up a hat trick including a try down the right side where there just wasn’t room, but he found some anyway. Overall, the Reds scored 6 tries to 4, and there was plenty of attack from both sides.
This Week
The World Cup moves into semi-finals:
- New Zealand v Canada – Saturday 20 September 4:00am, from Bristol
- France v England – Sunday 21 September 00:30am, from Bristol
And the second round of Super Rugby Australia is on with:
- the Force hosting the Brumbies in Perth on Saturday afternoon
- the Waratahs hosting the Reds in Narrabri on Saturday evening.
Festival of Rugby – Narrabri
Narrabri town centre is set to come to life on Friday, 19 September when the Santos Festival of Rugby launches with a free street party for the first time. And what a festival it promises to be with the following roster of action for Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday, 20 September:
· Classic Wallabies Kids Clinic, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Women’s Rugby Sevens, 2:00pm
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Women, 2:30pm
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Women’s Rugby Sevens, 4:30pm
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Super Rugby AUS, 5:45pm
Sunday, 21 September:
· Queensland Country v NSW Country, U18 Girls, 9:00am
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Women’s Rugby Sevens, 10:20am
· Classic Wallabies v Narrabri Blue Boars over 35s, 11:00am
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Women’s Rugby Sevens, 12:00pm
· Queensland Reds v NSW Waratahs Super Rugby U19s, 1:00pm
If you do get along to Narrabri this weekend, you might run into regular G&GR writer and podcaster Happyman, and watch out for our favourite sports photographer, Stephen Tremain.
You can read more about the festival here.
That’s a wrap
That’s a wrap for this week, as always, thanks for reading this far, here’s to a fun and productive Tuesday and some great banter in the comments.
Cheers
