Phil Waugh insists that Joe Schmidt will hand the Wallabies over to Les Kiss in good shape, despite the national team winning just one of its last 10 Tests.
Australia capitulated in the second half against France last weekend, conceding 30 unanswered points in the 42-26 Nations Championship loss in Brisbane.
France’s Romain Ntamack breaks the tackle of Australia’s Ryan Lonergan. AP Photo/Tertius Pickard
Schmidt will finish as Wallabies coach with the side’s worst winning percentage in the professional era if the team fail to beat Italy in Perth on Saturday night.
That is no given, with the Wallabies ranked eighth in the world and Italy 10th.
Italy have beaten Australia in their last two meetings: a 26-19 loss in Udine last year and a 28-27 defeat in Florence under Dave Rennie in 2022.
Regardless of the result, Schmidt will then pass the baton to Kiss for an opening assignment against Japan in Osaka on August 8.
The sight of Kiss watching losses from the stands in Sydney and Brisbane has infuriated Wallabies watchers, who can’t understand why he has not already got his hands on the team.
Ex-Wallabies halfback Nick Phipps is one of them.
“He should have been on that Spring Tour (last year),” Phipps said on Stan Sport’s Between Two Posts.
“He had nothing else to do. He should have been there … it just seems like a really big loss there. It feels like this last little interim period, we’ve lost a lot of ground and… lost the opportunity to build into next year’s World Cup.
“Like, Kissy should have been in charge three games ago as far as I’m concerned. He should have been straight in there off the back of the Queensland season, but we’ve missed these three games.
“He should be in and around there at the very least, floating around the back of the box, not sitting up with his missus in the stands enjoying the game.”
Kiss did spend some time in Wallabies camp on the Spring Tour and has been increasingly involved in Australia’s Nations Championship training and selection preparations – just not on game days.
Phipps played under Kiss at London Irish and felt the current Wallabies players would be uneasy with the handover situation.
“Kissy’s in charge in August. Everyone would be on eggshells in and around there… like, ‘OK, so is this squad going to be the same in August or is Kissy picking a completely new squad?’ Am I playing for my career, like, what’s happening here?”
Incoming Australia coach Les Kiss looks on. Getty
Rugby Australia announced last year that Kiss would succeed Schmidt after he saw out his contract with the Queensland Reds for the 2026 Super Rugby season.
“The salient point is that he should have been coaching these Test matches,” ex-Wallabies centre Morgan Turinui said on Between Two Posts.
“I think now, in the fair dinkum department we can look back and go, OK, well, the Reds and Rugby Australia probably could have worked that out better. Whatever it took to get it done… there might have been a couple of missed opportunities, definitely the last few weeks might have been.”
RA chief executive Phil Waugh was putting on a brave face on Tuesday at a sponsor’s event to celebrate Hahn’s return as the beer of the Wallabies.
Schmidt described the run of losses as “soul-destroying” but Waugh was confident that Kiss was inheriting some solid building blocks.
“We genuinely believe that,” Waugh told nine.com.au.
“When Joe took on the head coaching role, and where the game was more broadly – not just the Wallabies environment – I think the reconnection with our community and the support we’ve got across Australia for the Wallabies, and what it means to our Australian people, I think it’s made huge progress.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the win-loss ratio at the levels we’d all like, but if you think about the progress and the competitiveness of the international game at the moment… we’ve been there or thereabouts over the last 18 months.
Phil Waugh at a Hahn sponsorship event. Hahn
“I think he’s handing over the squad to Les in a really, strong position, and ultimately, we need to continue that trajectory and that progress, to close the gap on the win/losses.”
As a former Wallabies captain, Waugh knows more about footy than the average CEO. He said mental strength remained a massive area for improvement.
“I don’t want to get into coaching, but given I’ve played a lot, the gap’s winning those critical moments, and ensuring that you haven’t got lapses in concentration,” Waugh said.
“The way that Test rugby is played at the moment, and the competitiveness of Test rugby at the moment, those lapses in concentration ultimately can cost you the Test match, and we’ve probably seen that two weeks in a row.”