Rival's woes: South African 'brutality' is the missing ingredient
SPOTLIGHT: Former Wallaby fullback Matt Burke believes Australian players are struggling with the physical demands at the top level of the game.
Australian rugby has been in decline over the last few years. Their recent end-of-year schedule has been an example of this after they succumbed to a first winless European tour since 1958.
There was a glimmer of hope here and there after wins over the British and Irish Lions (Sydney) and the Springboks (Ellis Park), but the overall picture for 2025 is not very pretty.
New Zealander Joe Schmidt has led the Wallabies to a record 10 defeats in the calendar year.
For Burke, it all starts at Super Rugby level, where the Aussie teams are no longer getting that physicality and brutality that the South African franchises gave them in the past.
The rugby landscape changed when the Covid-19 pandemic halted everything in 2020, which led to the formation of Super Rugby Pacific, while the SA teams headed to Europe.
Speaking on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin, Burke believes the Australians are lacking that exposure to the South African game.
“The difficulty is the understanding of how to play and when you’re playing South Africa, and we used to tour, two, three weeks at a time, and so you’d start to understand the level of intensity over there,” said Burke.
He added: “Maybe this new crew doesn’t know what it means to play South African rugby,” Burke said.
“Oh, it is the be-all and end-all, and you go over there. The fans are fanatical, the training [sessions], there are fans watching you at training.
“So there’s always people around you and maybe the microscope, maybe the new crew understands that we’ve got to go over there, it’s going to be difficult, but to play against those South Africans and, as you said, just the muscling up, I think, is probably the big one.”
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Burke touched on his generation that respected the “brutality” that they were facing frequently.
“So, because we maybe had a good understanding of what was coming our way, that elevated your level of competitiveness in the physicality and the brutality in amongst that world,” he said.
“Like, it is, from what I can see now in the change, from what was in our day, is the brutality of the contact now.”
Burke said South Africa’s absence has brought about a developmental impact on Australian players in terms of approaching different styles.
“You can never compare eras, but certainly what I’d say from this mob at the moment is that without the South African blokes in there, I think we don’t understand the week-to-week physicality that is needed and not taking away anything from the trans-Tasman Conference.
“I think it’s brilliant and, as I said, we always pride ourselves on playing against New Zealand teams and playing well against them, but the South Africans offered a different way of playing the game.
“You know that brutality, and sometimes when you get that first hit and your eyes are as big as a dinner plate, you’re thinking ‘What’s going on here?’”
Additional source: The Roar
