Joseph Sua’ali’i is putting rugby back on the Australian sporting map after stunning debut win over England

Provided we show patience and don’t pressure the guy, Joseph Sua’ali’i is guaranteed to win Australia the next three rugby World Cups.

Okay, you’re right. That prediction is horrifically misguided.

Make it four World Cups. And two Bledisloes.

While one Spring Tour win does not a summer make, you can’t deny that Sua’ali’i’s composed debut in the Wallabies’ stunning win over England at Twickenham is the greatest number of positive facts written in one sentence about Australian rugby since we upset the All Blacks in the 2003 World Cup semi-final and George Gregan somehow wasn’t rucked to death after sledging them about “four more years”.

And while false dawns in Australian rugby are as common as a popped collar on a Country Road polo, hopes are high Sua’ali’i can be the catalyst that revives our golden age in rugby when these type of wins were more than an historical oddity.

While celebrated as a rare coup at the time, Sua’ali’i’s announced defection from the NRL in March 2023 was considered a pyrrhic win for rugby based on the destruction it would wreak on the game’s fragile bottom line and savaged ego.

While nobody doubted the prodigy’s potential, was it worth Rugby Australia parting with $1.6m annually just to annoy Peter V’Landys?

How would the rookie’s inclusion impact an already-beleaguered Wallabies squad, especially once he was inevitably fast-tracked at the expense of an actual rugby player on a third of his wage?

And were we seriously resting our hopes on toppling the All Blacks at the feet of a kid whose last game of rugby was six years ago in high school?

But for all these suffocating complexities, Sua’ali’i squashed them on Sunday by dragging Australian rugby to a place it hasn’t been for eons: Back on the map.

Seeing Sua’ali’i’s heartening debut intersect with a famous Wallabies win was a rare flashbulb moment that foisted the game back on talkback and water coolers across the nation, albeit momentarily.

It was the perfect start for both player and Rugby Australia, especially the latter after giving up a collective kidney to secure his signature.

Whether the game likes it or not, modern Australian rugby has relied on league players to attain mainstream cut-through, and Sua’ali’i will be no different.

And while most of this has been hardcore NRL fans giving a cursory glance across the divide just to see how Mat Rogers and Israel Folau fares in that “other silly sport,” sadly beggars can’t be choosers when your sport has dropped down the pecking order deeper than the Mariana Trench.

Sua’ali’i is already achieving this, not only locally with plenty of interest in his selection for the first test, but even in the minds of rugby boffs with his unexpected Man of the Match award surely attributable to his star power and simple identifiability.

But there is one other area Sua’ali’i can restore Aussie rugby’s appeal beyond private schools and hedge fund managers- and it will shock you.

Via actual rugby.

It’s no secret the former Rooster possesses enough skill, athleticism and charisma to keep the lights on at Rugby Australia for a millennia, and Sunday was a small glimpse in to a flower that is just beginning to bud.

Sua’ali’i may have only registered six carries and was occasionally marooned in defence, but the manner he threw himself in to contact and remained cucumber-cool in the pressure cooker of Twickenham was enough to have rugby tragics reminiscing of the secure era under John Eales.

With maturity beyond his years at the ripe age of 21, Australian rugby can bank on the one-time NRL Origin rep for the long term like a solid medium-risk investment option, unlike other prodigies of his generation who can easily illicit impulse money from such desperate organisations only to make more impressions in their notifications than on the paddock.

All we need to do as a nation is give Sua’ali’i time and space to deliver us our long awaited influx of trophies- because let’s be honest, rugby in these parts desperately needs it.

While the game continues to thrive across the globe, rugby union in Australia has been on the skids for decades.

Once a powerhouse that contended for major trophies with the pheromones to attract the finest talent, the Wallabies have collapsed to near minnow status by bombing out of World Cups with such alarming regularity that it’s no longer alarming.

It’s been so long since we’ve won a Bledisloe Cup that it’s never been captured on a smart device, and the game has never been more ostracised from the mainstream since slowly burying itself behind a paywall under the TV deal struck in 2020.

Off the field rugby is a shambles too, with the governing body so financially stricken that it was bailed out by World Rugby to the tune of $14.2m during Covid, a humiliation that was duly topped when most of the funds were blown fighting Israel Folau and Eddie Jones.

Add the unprecedented catastrophe of the group stage exit at the last World Cup and our recent record capitulation to Argentina - a match the Wallabies lead 20-3 only to be inexplicably torched 67-27 - and it’s unclear whether the results are more embarrassing or the public’s somnolent apathy.

However, Sua’ali’i’s signature could be the turnaround the game has craved - and not just because we’re basking in a sugar hit of bouncing the Poms.

For all his faults, then-chairman Hamish McLennan should be chaired down Sydney’s North Shore like a Greek god for throwing the chequebook at the prodigy so outrageously.

Even if it was only to get up V’Landys’ nose.