Wynne Gray: Out of the comfort zone

Robbie Deans endeared himself quickly to the Wallabies' family and to those who were unsure of his appointment. Photo / Getty Images

This is Australia, a sports-mad nation where rugby rates about No 4 on the winter attraction chart behind league, Aussie Rules and soccer.

Even for those blinkered to endless coverage of those sports plus the Ashes cricket test series, the world athletics championships and slug-racing at Mollombindi, it was strange to watch the television coverage on the Bledisloe Cup.

On the night the All Blacks and Wallabies were named it was hard to find much at all. And the next day it was gone. Were it not for the Sydney newspapers, the Bledisloe Cup test might have been a mirage.

Inspection will ramp up a bit from today as the international looms for those who are making the trek out to the massive international stadium in Sydney's western suburbs.

There is some growing heat too on Wallaby coach Robbie Deans.

Into the second year of his four year deal to convert the Wallabies into a consistent threat and a World Cup menace in 2011, a hint of the give-Robbie-time campaign may be starting to fade.

He will be as anxious and frustrated as anyone. For someone used to the success which he developed, instilled and left at the Crusaders, his time across the Ditch has been a much less comfortable or profitable ride.

Especially against the Wallabies' old enemy, his old team, the men in black who have journeyed across the Tasman for tomorrow's Sydney Shootout, with the loser out of this year's Tri-Nations race.

There will be twitches in official circles too where John O'Neill oversaw the signing of Deans in the wake of the 2007 World Cup dramas.

Dean's first year in charge was always going to be a mix of embrace and space, a welcome for the coach who had achieved so much with the Crusaders and needed a lengthy evaluation of the players on offer as he worked through schemes to suit them and the surge in success demanded by the code's followers.

The 49-year-old endeared himself quickly to the sport and those who were unsure of his appointment.

Deans put in the kilometres, flying to remote parts of the Big Brown Country to speak and deliver skills sessions as well as attending to the national needs of the Wallabies.

His work ethic, unrivalled energy, his ability to roll up his sleeves and get involved in training or in donning the evening suit to speak to those who favoured the dinner circuit, was warmly noticed.

Australia and the Wallabies had a warm fuzzy feeling about the bloke from the Glenmark rugby club, who graduated to Canterbury, the All Blacks and a similar upward trend in coaching.

But those feelings only last so long in a nation where success is paramount in the harsh, competitive commercial worlds of sponsorship and television which rugby inhabits.

Australia may have won two World Cups, more than any other country in the competition's short history, but those ticker tape parades down George St and every other main drag do not ensure rugby's pre-eminence in this nation.

The last global triumph was 1999 though there was a chance of a hat-trick in 2003 until Jonny Wilkinson and England slammed the door shut on that hope.

After another World Cup washout in 2007, O'Neill in his second chapter at the top job, aimed up at Deans. His board gave him their blessing to get the best. The talent pool was not deep in Australia as the chief executive and a few trusted cronies mulled over the candidates.

Springbok coach Jake White was under scrutiny after his World Cup triumph, Clive Woodward was considered, Ian McGeechan, Eddie Jones, Ian McIntosh.

But the instincts around Australia's rugby HQ were that if New Zealand bypassed Deans in their job selection, then Dingo Deans was their man.

Bingo! Dingo got the Wallaby job.

The first year passed with a memorable 34-19 win for the Wallabies against the All Blacks, in their first meeting under Deans' command.

That triumph and all the euphoria found a different equilibrium in the next test when the All Blacks belted the Wallabies 39-10 at Eden Park.

The men in yellow then lost, narrowly, in Brisbane, Hong Kong and Auckland again this year.

The one-nil chants of a year ago look a little pale against the 4-1 record that now stands in the All Blacks favour. In Deans' defence he warned of those perils unless the Wallabies made decent strides.

But warnings are sometimes not enough. Officials, supporters, the media and sponsors demand more.

After some promise in their June tests, the Wallabies have dipped twice. There is a simmering heat around them and their coach as they face an All Blacks side on the same losing run.

Deans' advantages are many. His previous record, his work ethic and connection with the wider rugby community, his obvious rapport with the Wallabies and perhaps most importantly, his political clout.

Unlike those who preceded him, men like John Connolly, Eddie Jones and Bob Dwyer who found their state connections provoked reprisal votes from New South Wales, Queensland or the ACT, Deans is not aligned to any of those factions.

His advantage is the support of O'Neill as long as the senior executive decides to continue and is approved in his power-broking portfolio. It is a powerful connection.

O'Neill has a number of political rivals but his energy, economic clout, vision, ability to think outside the square and intellect makes him an invaluable ally for Deans. They are both very shrewd blokes who might fancy their chances of fending off bushfires with a garden hose.

If the Wallabies suffer further and regular stumbles this season, the Dingo and the Auburn Fox might yet be asked to test those peculiar abilities.