Thankfully we have the ever-reliable Eddie Jones to provide a reality check to all the poop being tossed out by the Australian contingent in the Super Rugby tournament -- both on and off the field.

The five Australian teams have been underwhelming this season, as shown by their positions on the Super Rugby table (fourth, ninth, 13th, 14th and 16th), while local officials haven't helped the cause with some really dumb public statements in recent weeks.

The most hilarious came from the Australian Rugby Union bunker, with Bill Pulver producing the great stand-up line that the code must move away from its Anglo-Saxon male base and find more players in the public high school system.

Gee thanks, Scoop!

Hate to tell you that big, bad stallion bolted out of the back paddock years ago.

Eddie Jones© Patrik Lundin/Getty Images

Due to decades-long apathy and an over-reliance on the private school system to get them out of trouble by providing the talent, it may now be too late to get rugby back into the education mainstream.

Other winter sports are too well entrenched in the public school system -- the mainstream that rugby snobs have conveniently ignored, even turned their noses up at, for so long.

And as for rugby and Anglo-Saxon male affiliations: that was a long, long time ago; rugby in Australia has been blessed for some time with a Polynesian influence, and it's time for an optometrist to visit the ARU.

Then there's another dilemma. What are rugby players' options when they leave public, private or whatever school, especially with ARU officials having made it clear have absolutely no interest in trying to prop up the club structure?

Pulver's appalling statement to the Sydney club fraternity that he would not directly fund them because they would "p--- it up against the wall" will forever haunt him. It is astonishing that Pulver remains the main statesman of the game in Australia given such a flippant disregard for the most important level of the game.

So no surprises that amid all the fluff surrounding the ARU annual report and grandiose "five-year plans" was the stark statistic that club rugby in Australia had seen playing numbers fall by 7.6 percent. That is the most damning of figures, and it is understandable when the ARU make such appalling decisions as levying the lower levels of the game in a bid to improve its own coffers. 

As senseless were comments emanating from the Waratahs head office suggesting they didn't want to relocate to Sydney's west if they were kicked out of Moore Park during the proposed stadium redevelopment. Elitist, head-in-the sand stuff, and embarrassing when they call themselves the New South Wales Waratahs. More like the Private Clique Networking Waratahs. Lucky the NSW Government got them out of that mess by deciding to renovate Moore Park rather than bulldoze it.

The most desperate quotes have come from the Waratahs' underwhelming coach, Daryl Gibson. His comment a few weeks ago that Australian teams, including the Waratahs, might be struggling, because former Wallabies coach Eddie Jones may have inadvertently robbed a generation of Australian rugby players of their attacking instincts, defies belief.

Gibson said the Jones era of "playing ABC-certain type of rugby" had prompted a lack of decision making. Strange blame game going on there. 

© Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

No wonder Jones reacted, and with good reason. Gibson was out of order.

The now England coach told Fairfax Media: "So we get some guy coming in on the coat-tail of 'Cheik' [former Waratahs coach and now Australia coach Michael Cheika], and then tries to change his team and play like a Kiwi side and then blame a coach from 10 years ago? That's pretty red hot.

"He's trying to get the Waratahs to play like a Kiwi side. We've seen it with Robbie Deans; we don't want Australian sides to play like New Zealand sides. That's the great thing Cheik's done with the Wallabies- he's got them playing like an Australian side, not copying a Kiwi side."

You can also say that Jones was a good selector.

© Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

You can't exactly say Gibson has done wonders at the selection table this year, constantly picking has-beens, out-of-form players, and others who are not up to it. The coach is floundering, and that's a prime reason why the Waratahs are struggling.

There was a really big give up a few weeks ago when one of their most senior players, Benn Robinson, said publicly that he was concerned with the pre-match preparation. The Waratahs have again lost their way, and for that the spotlight must be directed straight at the coach.

Like Pulver and the club fiasco he has helped create, Gibson will regret attempting to touch up Jones. He is way out of his league.

Jones also had some telling comments about the misguided ARU and SANZAAR campaign to expand Super Rugby.

Having five Australian teams was, according to Jones "the worst decision the ARU ever made" because it has "diluted" the local talent pool.

As for having 18 Super Rugby teams: "It's really dropped the standards. I watch most of the games, but some of the games put me to sleep."

Fast Eddie is right yet again. The standards have slumped dramatically.

The Australian teams all possess players well short of the mark, and they are only making up the numbers. So many of the games are boring. Several each round are near unwatchable.

I can't wait for the next silly statement from an Australian official either trying to blame someone else or attempting to camouflage the bleeding obvious ... that the core of the Australian game is rotting.