It may be a Rugby World Cup year but the Bledisloe Cup still matters | Bret Harris

There can be no disputing the World Cup is rugby’s showpiece event, but the obsession with winning the Webb Ellis Cup is having a detrimental effect on other important competitions, which sustain the game over a four-year cycle, not just once every four years.

This Saturday, the first Bledisloe Cup match of the year will be played in Perth, but will the two-match series be sacrificed at the altar of the World Cup, just like Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship have been?

Australia and New Zealand devalued Super Rugby when they systematically rested Test players this year, while the Wallabies, All Blacks and South Africa experimented during the first two rounds of the truncated Rugby Championship.

The Wallabies won the 2015 Rugby Championship title and its precursor, the Tri Nations, in 2011, but did not receive much credit. The implication was that the Wallabies’ rivals had their eyes on a bigger prize, but surely the Bledisloe Cup is worth striving for every year.

We will find just out how much importance both teams place on it when the teams run out at Optus Stadium in the second part of a double-header with the women’s teams on Saturday.

Administrators, coaches and players increasingly believe their careers are judged almost exclusively on World Cup performance, but Australia and New Zealand cannot afford to devalue the Bledisloe – the State of Origin of Trans-Tasman rugby. It is second in importance only to the World Cup and the integrity of the series must be preserved, even in a World Cup year.

There should be sufficient motivation to go all-out, given it is the major Test series before the World Cup, and the winner will head to Japan with self-belief and momentum.

In his last year as All Blacks coach Steve Hansen will not want to be known as the coach who surrendered the Bledisloe Cup, while Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has an opportunity to break a 16-year drought.

But there is enormous pressure on the pair to succeed at the World Cup. Hansen is aiming to coach the All Blacks (as an assistant and head coach) to an historic three-peat of World Cup victories, while Cheika has vowed to step down as Wallabies coach if they do not win the tournament.

As holders the All Blacks are in a more advantageous position than the Wallabies in the Bledisloe series because they only have to win one of the two Tests – reduced from the usual three because of the World Cup – to retain the silverware.

The All Blacks can secure the Cup with a win in Perth and then conduct any last-minute experiments in the second Test in Auckland the following Saturday night.

Conversely, the Wallabies need to focus on winning both Tests to regain the Bledisloe Cup, something Cheika may or may not be prepared to do as part of the preparation for Japan, especially if he still has unanswered questions after Perth.

In 2015 the Wallabies upset the All Blacks 27-19 in the opener in Sydney, their first win against the Kiwis in four years, but Cheika changed half his team for the second Test in Auckland and they were thrashed 41-13. It was a missed opportunity.

This year the All Blacks have looked disjointed in their first two Rugby Championship Tests against Argentina and South Africa and may be uncharacteristically vulnerable. What would Cheika do if the Wallabies managed to upset them again in Perth? Would he use the second Test as a World Cup trial match as he did in 2015 or would he go for broke to bring back the Bledisloe?

The lop-sided nature of the series in recent years has resulted in a waning of interest, at least on this side of the Tasman. There was a time not so long ago when a Bledisloe Test would be guaranteed to fill the 80,000-seat ANZ Stadium, but 60,000 to 70,000 is a more likely attendance now.

The latest edition of this famous rivalry is expected to be a sell-out, but Optus Stadium only seats 65,000, well below the high watermark for such contests.

The last thing the Bledisloe Cup needs right now is an attack on its credibility by its own participants seeking greater glory. The World Cup is the priority, but do the All Blacks and the Wallabies really have to diminish 88 years of Bledisloe history and tradition in their bid to lift the Webb Ellis Cup?

source: theguardian.com