Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Two and a half years ago, Joe Schmidt put away his fishing rod and golf clubs in Lake Taupo, New Zealand and prepared to cross the ditch to take on a far less peaceful project.
He had been tasked with reviving the Wallabies after their disastrous 2023 World Cup under Eddie Jones.
Since then, Schmidt has coached the Wallabies in 28 Tests, winning 11. As he prepares to hand over the reins to Les Kiss at the end of the month, how will his tenure in Australia be remembered? To understand Schmidt’s legacy, it is important to look beyond the win-loss column.
The appointment
After the Wallabies failed to reach the knockout stages of the World Cup in October 2023, the task of rebuilding the team began in earnest before Christmas.
On his return from France, Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh knew he needed a coach who could not only build morale in a playing squad whose confidence had been shot to pieces, but also help the Wallabies become competitive in time for the arrival of the British and Irish Lions in 2025. It would be the toughest challenge of Schmidt’s coaching career.
“It was obviously a very disappointing and disruptive period for Australian rugby, coming out of the Rugby World Cup and, obviously, the results of the tournament,” Waugh said.
“Certainly, ensuring we had the right leader with the right experience to make the right connection with the group was really important.”
RA had appointed Peter Horne as their high-performance director in December 2023, and tasked him with identifying the next head coach. Horne was confident that he knew the right man for the job, but it wasn’t going to be an easy sell.
Horne and Schmidt had become close friends during their time working together at World Rugby during the Covid pandemic after Schmidt had finished upa successful six-year stint coaching Ireland.
“When I applied for the RA role, I was using Joe as a person that you’d have a chat to and get some sort of checks and balances on things,” Horne said.
“In those conversations, I said, ‘Is there ever a place where you’d be interested in working again together?’”
Schmidt and Horne agreed that the Wallabies needed to become competitive again. The difficult part for Horne was persuading the New Zealander that he was the man to do it.
Eventually, Horne won and Schmidt agreed to take over as coach, but only up until the British and Irish Lions series.
Ultimately, Schmidt would decide to extend his time in charge beyond the Lions series to help facilitate the handover to another rugby friend, Reds coach Kiss.
The work
Schmidt did not officially start with the Wallabies until March 2024, but he started pulling late nights and early mornings in January.
By his own admission, Schmidt didn’t know Australia’s players particularly well. He had previously graduated to the Ireland job after three year of immense success with its most successful province, Leinster. That change had been organic, but rebuilding a broken Wallabies squad in just 18 months was an entirely different challenge.
Waugh believes Schmidt’s work ethic is a large part of what makes him so successful.
“It’s not surface level, he goes to a level of detail for every interaction that he’s having with any of the players,” Waugh said. “You cannot fake hard work, and Joe’s worked as hard as I’ve seen anyone work in a rugby system.”
It was not unusual for RA staffers to receive emails from Schmidt in the early hours of the morning concerning particular game plans or players. Last November, on tour with the Wallabies in London, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii joked that he wasn’t sure Schmidt ever actually slept.
A regular attendee at Super Rugby training sessions, Schmidt also regularly visited clubs, schools and coaches across the country to develop his knowledge of Australian rugby.
A Super Rugby player not necessarily anywhere near Test selection might nonetheless receive a phone call with a detailed analysis of his game, simply to help improve his performance.
“I don’t know many other coaches that go to that amount of detail where it’s not just about the immediate group, but it’s also about the extended group and then taking enough time to give them feedback that actually can make them better,” Horne said.
“And I just think that’s a huge amount of work that actually lifts the base. You could [just] invest in the top 38 or top 40 players, but the reality is he’s doing way more than that.
“He’s investing in a cohort of players that are going to lift not only Super Rugby, but the national team.”
The results
Schmidt’s win record in charge of the Wallabies stands at 39 per cent, but Horne believes that figure needs some context.
The Wallabies defeated the British and Irish Lions in the third Test last year and only lost the decisive second Test at the MCG 29-26 after a contentious late try. They beat South Africa at their Ellis Park fortress for the first time in 62 years.
But in November, at the tail end of a gruelling year, the Wallabies lost all four Tests on their spring tour of Europe, against England, Ireland, Italy and France. Those four defeats did little for Schmidt’s win ratio and obscured the good work earlier in the year, when the Wallabies could rightly claim to have made real progress.
“I’ve described last year as a good year, but a bad month,” Horne said. “He’s been so impactful across the game [in Australia]. Not only with people and communities, but on players and them actually individually getting better … he has helped Australia believe again in itself, and now a lot of the players trust each other to deliver on the performances that are required.”
The players
Schmidt has given Test debuts to 24 players during his time at the helm. Harry Wilson, Len Ikitau and Tom Wright have been transformed from World Cup rejects to key Wallabies.
Second-rower Jeremy Williams debuted in Schmidt’s first Test, against Wales in July 2024, and will win his 26th Test cap against Ireland on Saturday.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s Test against Ireland at Allianz Stadium in Sydney, back-rower Rob Valetini insisted the systems and methods put in place by Schmidt would continue to bear fruit long after his departure.
“I would probably say as players, probably just through training, I think our habits and things that we’ve been trying to work on have changed a lot,” Valetini said.
“I’d also say our mindset as well going into games. When we first came in, and we started training, he pulled us up a lot on things and I think we were just trying to drive a lot of high standards.”
The legacy
Ireland coach Andy Farrell is uniquely placed to appraise Schmidt’s Wallabies tenure, having worked under him as an assistant for three seasons before replacing him as head coach in 2019.
Farrell has coached against Schmidt’s Wallabies five times: three as Lions head coach and in two November victories in 2024 and 2025 in charge of Ireland.
Though he left in 2019, Schmidt’s presence is still felt at Ireland’s training centre in north Dublin, where players hold each other to account on every detail of their games – a legacy of the Schmidt years. Farrell believes the New Zealander’s time in charge of the Wallabies will, similarly, create a solid foundation that will benefit Australian rugby in the long term.
“It’s not just how he coaches the side, but how he’s grown Australian rugby as a whole,” Farrell said.
“I suppose that was his remit, to hand the baton over in a healthy place. I’m sure he’ll have a connection there, right through to the World Cup and maybe beyond that. I don’t know, but I think the same thing will happen, like it happened in Ireland.
“People will feel the effects of what Joe’s done for years to come, and I suppose that’ll be his legacy to Australian rugby.”
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