Joe Schmidt says he would be “disappointed” if he doesn’t finish up with the Wallabies on his own terms, but admits he would be happy to walk away if Rugby Australia determines it’s the best outcome following a horror end to 2025.
After seven defeats from their past eight Tests, including four straight losses to end a brutal and campaign, the wave of momentum behind Schmidt has all but stopped.
The defeat ensured they became the first Wallabies team to lose ten matches in a calendar year.
It also saw Schmidt’s winning percentage with the Wallabies slump to 39 per cent – a fraction ahead of compatriot Dave Rennie (38), who was sacked in January 2023 following a campaign of near misses and ill-discipline.
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt says he is happy to walk away if Rugby Australia determine that the best path forward. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
In another era, calls for Schmidt to be sacked would be deafening.
But with the 60-year-old signed on to lead the Wallabies until August 2026, which coincides with the first three Tests of the year, before handing the reins to Reds coach Les Kiss, the usual calls for a change in leadership have been tempered.
However, restlessness has flooded in recently following more head-scratching selections, including the on-and-off relationship with veteran James O’Connor.
Dreadful results, including the first four-Test winless tour of Europe since 1958, and a dour, narrow style of play have also led to many questioning the direction the Wallabies are heading in less than two years out from Australia hosting the 2027 World Cup.
The horror finish to 2025 ensured the Wallabies finished seventh on World Rugby’s rankings and, thereby, ensured the nation won’t be given a top-six seeding for the 2027 tournament.
Asked whether he was determined to bow out on his own terms in late July, Schmidt said he was only continuing with the Wallabies until mid-2026 because Rugby Australia had asked him to stay on in April to allow Kiss to finish his tenure at the Reds.
“Unless somebody else can do a better job, I’m happy to step away,” Schmidt said.
“I was only really going to be here until the end of the Lions. And then six days later, we were assembling to fly to South Africa.
“I understood that it was very hard for someone to come in and suddenly take over at that stage, and then because of the very tight window before we even came away on tour, again, it’s very hard for someone suddenly to come in.
“As I said before, I absolutely admire this group of young men who are trying really hard.
“So if there’s a sense that somebody else can come in and do a better job, that’s certainly not for me to say. I’ll just play golf a bit sooner.”
Schmidt did, however, say he would be left “disappointed” if he wasn’t allowed to serve out his two-and-a-half-year tenure.
“I’ll be disappointed because I think these guys are working really hard, and I think they will continue to mature.”
The experienced coach added that he didn’t know how Rugby Australia was thinking heading into the new year.
“That’s somebody else’s decision to make,” he said.
Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh (R) announced on April 30 that Les Kiss (C) would succeed Joe Schmidt in August, 2026. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Last week, RA CEO Phil Waugh, who was on the board that appointed the past three national coaches, said he was confident that Schmidt would continue to oversee the Wallabies through to the end of his tenure.
“We’re very confident with the strategy we have in place, confident with the integration into a new coach after the Nations Championship,” Waugh told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Schmidt has had several Wallabies leap to his defence in recent weeks.
After Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii said the New Zealander was one of the best coaches he had played under ahead of the French defeat, Wallabies star Fraser McReight became the latest over the weekend.
“We all love him,” McReight told reporters on the ground.
“We all know he doesn’t sleep.
“He puts so much work into the team and we can see that he sacrifices a lot of family time.
“The boys want to play for him.
“I want to play for him.
“I care so much for him because we know it’s sort of reciprocated. And, yeah, it’s disappointing because at times we feel like we’re letting him down.”
Like Rennie, Schmidt hasn’t been able to turn narrow defeats into heartening victories.
While the Wallabies shocked the world by beating the Springboks in August and made it two from three to start The Rugby Championship by beating the Pumas with an 85th minute try, Schmidt’s side have fallen away drastically in the final quarter of matches since.
The late fadeouts have been a feature over the past month, with the Wallabies firmly in the hunt against England, Italy, Ireland and France before being blow away late in all four Tests.
Schmidt, who handed 19 players debuts in 2024 and a further five in 2025, has bemoaned the Wallabies’ lack of depth and said fatigue had played a part in their fall from grace over the past two months.
He added that his young Wallabies side wasn’t “mature” enough to handle the big stage and put away the best teams in the world.
“You can’t suddenly make them experienced and see the game quite as well as you’d like them to see it sometimes, or to be quite as efficient or get the execution spot on,” he said.
“And we missed a few things against France that could have given us a little bit of scoreboard separation. And if you get scoreboard separation, it allows you to breathe a bit, believe a bit and continue to play with a little bit more confidence.
“I just feel sometimes as soon as we go behind, we start to get a little bit desperate.
“We probably don’t as a team quite have the maturity to just manage those moments when we are under pressure.’’