The Wallabies' 54-34 loss to New Zealand last year attracted the smallest crowd of the professional era, well down from the Bledisloe Cup's halcyon days of two decades back, when 109,000 packed the then-Olympic Stadium, in its old configuration, in July 2000.

Even six years ago the same fixture attracted closer to 80,000, while the 2015 match – admittedly in a World Cup year and only 12 months after the Waratahs won the Super Rugby title – attracted 73,824.

On the bright side, this year's decider between Australia and Ireland was held in a sold-out Allianz Stadium (44,085), and the Wallabies' performance in that three-Test series will have Australian fans feeling optimistic about the prospects of a drought-breaking Bledisloe Cup win.

Australia faces a huge challenge to win the series for the first time in 16 years. Given foreign teams' records at Eden Park in Auckland, realistically the Wallabies must win in Sydney to keep the series alive heading into the third Test in Yokohama, Japan, in October.

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Next week's match will make history as the first Wallaroos-Wallabies Test match double-header on Australian soil.

Castle, who formally launched Australia's bid to host the 2021 Women's Rugby World Cup on Wednesday, said she wanted to make double-headers part of the annual schedule.

"The fact that it [this year] is a double-header has set a standard now [of] what is going to be a regular for us when we play New Zealand," she said. "ANZ Stadium, north of 55,000 people there for the women, we're going to do whatever we can to encourage everyone to get out there and watch that game first. It is those experiences and playing on a big stage in front of a big crowd that will be a great learning experience for our athletes."

Australia invited Ireland to send their women's team for a three-Test series of double-headers in June but the Ireland Rugby Football Union declined on a cost basis. Castle said combining the fixtures was a natural next step for all tier one rugby nations.

"It makes sense from a practical point of view that you would turn all rugby into the future into double-headers," she said. "There's no doubt now that every tier one nation has an established and developing women's program so that's certainly an evolution that I can see in the future."

Rugby Australia has until Friday to submit its bid to host the 2021 Women's World Cup, with a decision announced in November.