Follow live as the Waratahs look to snap Australia's long losing streak against Kiwi sides, as they host the Blues.
Live Super Rugby updates: Waratahs v Blues
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Patrick Tuipulotu of the Blues. Photo / Getty
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Today the situation in Australian rugby is hopeful. If the Waratahs lose to the Blues, however, the situation will suddenly be hopeless. Properly, truly, pack up and go home hopeless.
Australian rugby will become the sort of thing to keep an eye out for in car boot sales: its only value being nostalgic, it's only interested buyers the old time tragics who can remember the days when the Reds and Brumbies used to scare other teams with the talent at their disposal.
It really will be that bad. The thread to which Australian rugby is clinging will snap and their place in the Super Rugby universe should be seen as tenuous.
No one should assume that Australia should be granted their wish of keeping four teams in a revamped tournament from 2021.
The Waratahs are Australia's best Super Rugby team, the Blues are New Zealand's worst and have headed to Sydney with essentially a rag-tag bunch of rookies and provincial journeymen with no idea - none, zip, zero - how to stay united in the face of sustained pressure.
The Blues are in such a state that it is likely they don't always score when they are unopposed at training and once the Waratahs have located the ground and are safely out of the bus, that will be 80 per cent of the battle won right there.
The Blues are a broken, bumbling mess and if the Waratahs don't win, can't win, then when will this 37-match losing streak for Australian teams against New Zealand opposition end?
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It was fun at first, back in 2016 when the streak began. A bit of Aussie-bashing always warms the soul.
It started to feel a bit awkward at the end of last year when a whole season passed without an Australian win and if the sequence isn't broken this weekend then it will be time for New Zealand Rugby to genuinely question whether they want any attachment to a vessel that is clearly sinking without a trace.
