One of the reasons it's 'the flattest': when the Wallabies have won no BC or 3N for donkeys' years, and after multiple hype barrages this year before the first Samoan Test and then the Wallabies flunk that 'easy' Test big time and then make an absolute pathetic mess of the first Bledisloe game (again after much media pre-hype), punters lose motivation and interest and the media senses it. And why wouldn't they lose interest? - the inviolable golden rule of elite Australian sport is that our countrymen and women like big, consistent winners, and the more the better. They don't like pretenders that promise lots and never seem to get there.
If a team just routinely fails the big hurdles - and Australians see beating NZ in rugby as the hurdle they care most about with 'being no 2 in the IRB rankings' of zero interest to the mass fans - general community and media interest will die away or decline, slowly, but it will inevitably result.
This is one of the reasons I have long argued that the declared obsession with the RWC is only fine if there's a major pathway of silverware accretion and good wins vs ABs along the way that encourages broad community engagement and belief as the Australian national sports ego gets flattered by the Wallabies' demonstrated excellence and victories. If Tests in the intervening 3 years are essentially declared 'learning experiences for RWC preparation' the mass fans are essentially being kidded along and they'll sense just that.
