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Accountability non-negotiable as ramifications of Wallabies' World Cup exit spread far and wide

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Bruce: One of the darkest days in Australian rugby history (1:56)

Sam Bruce looks at where the 40-6 defeat to Wales and a group stage exit leaves the Wallabies, and the turmoil that surrounds Eddie Jones off the field. (1:56)

LYON, France -- At what point do you just walk away? Do you just throw in the towel, wash your hands of it all, and spare yourself more of the pain and anger that coincides with taking an emotional interest in Australian rugby?

It's a question many Wallabies fans will have been asking themselves on Monday, from Lyon to Lennox Head, from Paris to Perth, and everywhere in between, after Australia suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in the nation's sporting history -- let alone its recent rugby past.

What Eddie Jones' team dished up at Groupama Stadium was embarrassing and while the coach himself deserves as much of the blame as anyone, the players themselves and those making the decisions higher up the chain are as culpable as anyone.

How the Wallabies could sink to a 34-point defeat by Wales, a nation that was earlier this year engulfed in its own rugby civil war, truly beggars belief.

"I had a lot of different emotions I guess, you go into the game with a lot of hope even though their performances have been pretty poor for the balance of the season," former Wallabies captain Stephen Moore told ESPN when asked to describe his disappointment.

"But it was clear early on that Wales were dominating the game in most areas; I don't think there was an area that we weren't dominated in.

"By the end of it [my mood] was embarrassment. I actually felt for the players, they looked completely bereft of ideas and broken."

The ramifications of that 40-6 result, and almost certainly a first pool-stage exit, will be far and wide and felt in every corner of the game. It is a defeat of catastrophic proportions, while Rugby Australia is at risk of suffering even further embarrassment -- if that is indeed possible -- should the reports that Jones has sought a Wallabies exit and a return to Japan be proven correct.

RA chief executive Phil Waugh and Hamish McLennan both say they can only take Jones at his word and the coach has denied the Sydney Morning Herald report that he had interviewed for the soon-to-be vacant Japan job.

But if Jones is lying, as is alleged by the Herald, then he will have to go. And McLennan, will have to go with him.

That would complete yet another box on Australian rugby's bingo card of doom, leaving one to ponder: Would there be anything left to cross off thereafter?

The anger, frustration and state of utter abjectness thousands across the Australian game will be feeling right now is entirely understandable. But when they may have found even the smallest shred of hope to cling to previously, such a feeling of minute optimism, this time around feels almost impossible. Completely foolish, even.

When the game's rusted-on fans, those who have defended against constant ridicule, are calling time on their support, where does it leave the game's future Down Under?

RA has spoken about its golden decade of events, and how that can set up the game, but how embarrassing would a 3-0 defeat by the British & Irish Lions be in 2025?

Meanwhile, if the Wallabies hover around 10th on World Rugby's rankings, which they slipped to in a new record low on Monday morning, they could then foreseeably find themselves in a 2027 World Cup pool with Ireland and England, New Zealand and Wales, or France and Scotland?

On the basis of Saturday's performance, in what world are they getting out of any of those?

It is truly a sorry situation.

If the Wallabies' performances continue to slide in Jones' rebuild next year -- providing the coach does not pack his gear for Japan, or gets the axe -- then what does that do to the value of the code's already miserly broadcast deal? Without that key cash component, roles like the recently announced fulltime Wallaroos coaching position could be in jeopardy, putting one of the game's few good news stories -- the growth in women's participation -- at risk.

What must those Wallaroos players who launched a unified attack on RA via social media be thinking after Sunday's result? They at least made the quarterfinals at their own World Cup last year.

NRLW clubs are already picking off rugby talent from both the sevens and Super W competition year after year, and they number only 10 teams at this stage. What happens when that grows to mirror the men's competition at 17 in total, or beyond that with even greater expansion into the future?

And what talented cross-code 14-, 15-, 16- or 17-year-old will seriously align his or her future with rugby after seeing this latest disaster? Sure, playing on the game's greatest stage, in front of hundreds of millions worldwide is something, but what young kid would want to experience what the Wallabies players are feeling right now?

The knock-on effects of the Welsh thrashing go on and on, and on, which is what will make it so hard for many to find the smallest of shred of positivity to cling to moving forward.

Jones, meanwhile, is asking administrators and fans to trust him when he has previous form in contract backflips -- he left the Stormers for England without coaching a game in 2015 -- and issues near-guarantees like the one that said Australia would be victorious in Lyon.

"I've got no doubt we'll win on Sunday," Jones said. "I've got no doubt we'll win on Sunday, got no doubt. The way the team's prepared. The way they've come together. I've got no doubt we'll win on Sunday."

If Jones is to remain in the job despite the events of the past few weeks, RA will need to pull him into line and read him the riot act. Cut the carry-on, Eddie.

If he is to go, the Wallabies will be searching for a third coach in under 12 months.

Dave Rennie may break his silence once the World Cup finishes, and you can only imagine the choice words he will have for Rugby Australia. But he was a popular coach among the Australian players, and he will have felt their pain as much as anyone at the weekend, as skipper Will Skelton said on Monday.

"I think he would be hurting, mate. He's a good man, Dave," Skelton said. "He had a good relationship with his players as well, so I think he would be hurting on a personal level.

"I'm sure he would send texts out to his players, his ex-players, but I think as a person he's a good person, so he'd definitely be hurting for where we're at at the moment."

Would the Wallabies be all but out of the Rugby World Cup with a pool game to play had Rennie still been coach? The answer to that we will never know.

But the Australian rugby public is owed answers from Jones and the game's governing body.

"Have we got everything right within the Wallabies in the past 12 months? I think it's pretty clear that we've made some pretty ordinary decisions in a lot of different areas in the last 12 months, that if we had it again we might do something different," Moore summarized to ESPN.

"And that's the point I s'pose; the people who are involved in that need to be accountable for that, because that's how it works."

Amen.