Former Australian rugby captain Stirling Mortlock has addressed the alarming decline of Australian sports, saying "enough is enough."
Speaking to AAP, Mortlock vented his frustrations about the current state of the country's national representative teams, which have steadily regressed in the past two decades.
In 1999, Australia celebrated arguably theirgreatest year in the sporting world - winning both the cricket and rugby world cups, and claiming tennis' Davis Cup. Australia also took out the Netball World Championships, rugby league Tri-Nations, men's and women's hockey Champions Trophies, and Mark Occhilupo and Layne Beachley were men's and women's world surfing champions.
The new year will mark the 20-year anniversary of their 12 months of domination, but the landscape has change drastically.
Mortlock, who made his Wallabies debut the year after they won the 1999 world cup, suggested to AAP that there was not enough money being put toward the nations sports anymore.
"I was very lucky to come through at a time when I did. Got access to the (Australian Institute of Sport) when (it) was world leading," he told AAP.
"You look at England prior to them hosting the Olympics and how much resources — aka time and money — they invested in all sports and they were very successful over that period of time."
But he said it wasn't just money that was the issue. Mortlock noted that despite Australia producing plenty of talented coaches and mentors, many chose to ply their trade abroad.
"There's a lot of other things that go into having quality outcomes across all sports.
"You look at the landscape of most sports now and a lot of the good coaches aren't actually in Australia."
"The more effort and resources you put into something — be it our sport or a system — the better the outcome will be eventually," Mortlock said. "That's just been a bit of a state for our country for a period of time and sometimes it takes enough is enough.
"Back to my sport — rugby — and I'd argue that enough is enough and the 'oh Jesus' moment should have happened many years ago."
