Harry Wilson: Super Rugby has to entertain to resonate in Australia

Harry Wilson says Super Rugby must entertain in a crowded sporting marketplace in Australia, but the Wallabies captain is adamant the competition’s law variations do not make the switch back to Test rugby any harder.

Wilson, who will miss the opening weeks of this year’s season after undergoing minor knee surgery in January, was quizzed about the latest round of law tweaks, five in total, which competition officials hope will further speed up the game and limit “dead time”.

That is important in Australia, and increasingly so in New Zealand, where the game is up against the NRL as an entertainment product.

However, there are some concerns that Super Rugby Pacific is moving too far away from what the players face in Test rugby and that adapting back to the international arena is proving increasingly challenging.

“It’s obviously quite different to Test Rugby, Super Rugby, and I guess for us in Australia, it’s about promoting the game as well as we can to make it more entertaining to watch; that is something we might need to do in Australia,” Wilson told reporters.

“So I’m pretty comfortable with the law changes here, but obviously Test Rugby is different and they don’t probably worry as much about the viewers in Australia. It’s all about the best product, which is international rugby, so it’s obviously quite different. But it’s something we all enjoy playing in Super Rugby.”

Wilson’s Wallabies and Reds teammate Fraser McReight, who will captain Queensland this year, also threw his support behind the law variations.

“Some of the real variations this year, they definitely help to promote the quickness of the game,” McReight told ESPN.

“You look at the halfback, sort of a metre off the mark, how many times does a quick tap happen and the ref has to pull it back to the mark, especially with our halfbacks. I think that’s one of our strengths [playing at speed].

“So, making sure that, conversely, the defensive side of it, you have it to be switched on and knowing that they can do that [quick tap range] is going to be, especially the way Super Rugby is now — it’s quite tiring, a lot of running, it’s quite fast – so being prepared for that is [important]. And you look at the new 50/22 rule, being able to pass it back, it can work really, really well for you if you do it right, or it could hurt you.”

When Super Rugby Pacific concludes in June, Wallabies and All Blacks players will have only a few weeks to then switch back into Test mode for the first three games of the new Nations Championship.

Last season, the Wallabies were outmuscled physically in their first Test with the British and Irish Lions but then gave much better accounts of themselves in Melbourne and Brisbane.

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Weeks later, they beat the Springboks in Johannesburg, recovering from a 21-0 deficit, running all over their opponents in the final quarter in particular. Veteran James O’Connor later credited Super Rugby’s speed and its required fitness as one of the key drivers behind the Wallabies’ first win in Johannesburg in 63 years.

But Australia could only manage two further wins beyond that, over Argentina and Japan, for 2025 and finished the year with a four-game losing streak, when their weakness under the high ball was exposed, just as it had been with the All Blacks.

While Wilson acknowledged Super Rugby did not have the same amount of kicking as the international game, he backed Australia’s back-three contingent to improve that area of their game before the Wallabies meet Ireland in June.

“I haven’t really thought of it that way, but Test Rugby has changed drastically with the escort rules, and it’s so 50-50 now in the air, and that’s something which probably we didn’t adapt well enough to last year,” Wilson said. “And we worked hard on it, but we probably didn’t get the results we wanted.

“And obviously Super Rugby, there’s nowhere near as much high ball and stuff. But saying that, I back our back three [this] year, and we’ve got some of the best catchers in the air in the world on their day.

“Obviously Super Rugby, you’ve got to do whatever’s best for your team to win, but no doubt the boys are working on it in the meantime.”

And Wilson believes Super Rugby will pay dividends when the World Cup rolls around next October in Australia.

“We know what it’s like here in Australia, it will be nice and warm, even at seven, eight o’clock at night, it won’t really matter, and I think that’s an advantage to us,” he said.

“Getting through preseasons in Australia, it’s very hot, and even playing the Super season starting in February, it’s very warm, so it’s definitely conditions we’re used to.”