Payto & Panda: Wallabies fans losing hope; former Test prop Matt Dunning shedding the kilos Australian rugby fans are fast losing patience with the Wallabies. EWEN McKenzie could give Britney Spears a run for her money when it comes to short honeymoons. It's not quite the 55-hour marriage of Spears, but judging by TV ratings, Australia's love affair with big Link didn't take too much longer to sour. Buoyed by the possibilities of a new era, the first Wallabies Test under McKenzie drew a very healthy television audience of 919,000, on both pay and free-to-air TV. The figure of 360,000 on FoxSports was the fifth highest of all Test matches on Aussie soil. But, alarmingly for the ARU, two straight losses to the All Blacks saw punters switch off in droves. Ratings for last weekend's Springbok Test were down by more than 70% across both platforms. FoxSports had just 172,000 tune in (less than the dead-rubber Cowboys-Tigers match), and with the election on, Channel Ten shifted the live rugby to digital channel ONE and drew just 92,000. After yet another woeful defeat against the Boks, things don't look any more promising for Wallabies" ratings when they take on Argentina on Saturday night. It'll be up against a couple of decent competitors: the Roosters and Manly in the NRL's qualifying finals double-header, and the Sydney-Carlton sudden-death final in the AFL. As they say in Buenos Aires, buena suerte Wallabies, vas a necesitar. The plummeting ratings make you question the timing of the ARU in this week publicly pitching for free-to-air TV megabucks in the next SANZAR broadcast rights deal. ARU boss Bill Pulver told the Australian of his vision to secure a FTA partner for Super Rugby that could help the ARU increase broadcast revenues and raise the profile of the sport. Sounds admirable, certainly. But it also sounds a bit like the ARU's post-O'Neill spring clean has left no corporate memory of, say, the last TV deal. Three years ago. In 2010, Channel Ten were keen to sign up as the Test partner but also wanted a live Super Rugby game each week in the package. FoxSports were prepared to pay big bucks but only for exclusivity to screen Super Rugby. If the ARU siphoned off a game to Ten for relatively modest revenue, the pay TV network threatened to take a buzzsaw to its offer around $25-30m a year. A sum usually listed as No.1 or No.2 in ARU revenue.. FoxSports" hardball won out, and a Super Rugby highlights package screened instead on Nine. Usually at about 1am, because just like ten years ago, it didn't rate. Nine later handpassed the Test rights to Ten. The last SANZAR negotiations were even done when rugby was trending upwards, with a local World Cup and Lions tour in the next cycle. The Reds were on the rise, and the Wallabies appeared to hold promise. What's changed since then? Actually, don't answer that. The Wallabies players were as gobsmacked at the general public when given the news star skipper Will Genia had been dropped this week. Our snout tells us shocked players filed out of their team meeting whispering the full version of the acronym WTF? Changing your first name is clearly not a wise idea. Not only was Sanchez Genia benched, but Dolph (Steven) Luatua was also dropped by the All Blacks this week. With news Lote Tuqiri is going back to rugby on a three-month deal with Leinster, the question had to be asked: would the Dark Shark be allowed to play in Australian rugby again. Tuqiri was sacked by the ARU over disciplinary breach in 2009, the details of which still remains a closely-guarded secret (and that's saying something in Australian Rugby). Though none appear keen, we asked the ARU if a Super Rugby franchise wanted to recruit Tuqiri, would they sign off on it? The response was cold-water diplomatic. "We would consider any such proposal if and when it was put to us," a spokesman said. If you see a man that looks like a hollowed-out version of Matt Dunning, say g'day. It's Matt Dunning. The former Wallabies prop has apparently lost 15 kilograms on a diet of health shakes. The front-rowers union are said to be convening an extraordinary meeting in the near future to discuss Dunning's membership. There's a fair backline running around for Dunning's old club Balmain in the Subbies" first-grade semi-final this week against Mosman. Ex-Wallabies Ryan Cross and Drew Mitchell are the centres and former Easts and USA fullback Gavin DeBartolo is in the No.15.