{"id":149392,"date":"2025-09-17T09:05:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T09:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/149392\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T09:05:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T09:05:17","slug":"jo-yapp-on-wallaroos-world-cup-exit-and-coaching-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/149392\/","title":{"rendered":"Jo Yapp on Wallaroos\u2019 World Cup exit and coaching future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s the end of an era for Jo Yapp and the Wallaroos. With Australia<\/a> falling to Canada<\/a> 46-5 in the 2025 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a> quarter-finals last weekend, Yapp has coached that national side for the final time with no concrete plans for what comes next.<\/p>\n

Yapp was unveiled as the first female Head Coach in Wallaroos history towards the end of 2023, and the former England<\/a> scrum-half found success in that position. The Wallaroos claimed their first major trophy ever during Yapp\u2019s time in charge, winning WXV 2<\/a> in South Africa<\/a> last October.<\/p>\n

Australia defeated Fiji, the USA<\/a> and Wales<\/a> this year before flying to England for the World Cup. In a tough pool, the Wallaroos got the better of Samoa<\/a> 73-0, drew with the USA 31-all in York, and tournament favourites England needed 31 minutes to take the lead in round three.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team \"VideoPortia Woodman-Wickliffe receives Women\u2019s Top 50 award<\/p>\n

New Zealand Women\u2019s superstar Portia Woodman-Wickliffe spoke to RugbyPass after receiving the prestigious, inaugural RugbyPass Women\u2019s Top 50 award this week. <\/p>\n

View Top 50<\/a><\/p>\n

\"VideoPortia Woodman-Wickliffe receives Women\u2019s Top 50 award<\/p>\n

New Zealand Women\u2019s superstar Portia Woodman-Wickliffe spoke to RugbyPass after receiving the prestigious, inaugural RugbyPass Women\u2019s Top 50 award this week. <\/p>\n

These results were clear steps forward for the Wallaroos, who will have a new Head Coach from 2026, although there\u2019s no word yet on who that will be. Yapp announced in May that she would be returning home to England after the World Cup, which has sparked some rumours.<\/p>\n

John Mitchell is the current coach of the Red Roses, but some believe Yapp could be next in line for that role. About 90 minutes after Australia\u2019s quarter-final exit, Yapp addressed the England rumours while opening up about her short-term plans in a co-exclusive interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m contracted [with Rugby Australia] until October 31st so my job now will be to review, support and review the tournament and the build-up to that tournament,\u201d Yapp told RugbyPass and Rugby.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s to support and review the players in terms of making sure they\u2019re clear on their focuses coming off the back of this. Once that\u2019s done, I genuinely probably just need a bit of time to reflect. I haven\u2019t had that time at all, obviously I\u2019ve been wholeheartedly in this and I haven\u2019t been home to the farm for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen just see what happens from there because right now there isn\u2019t anything past the 31st of October. I probably just haven\u2019t allowed myself to even think past this role. I genuinely haven\u2019t looked outside of what I\u2019ve been doing here,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t considered anything at all so obviously it\u2019s always lovely to have our name considered for international jobs, of course it is, but it\u2019s just not something I\u2019ve given any real thought to if I\u2019m honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

You could see the emotion on Yapp\u2019s face after she walked out of Australia\u2019s changing room for this two-on-one interview. While the Wallaroos had shown grit and character during the World Cup, their hard work and sacrifice had led to that moment.<\/p>\n

Adiana Talakai gave an insight into \u201cpost-tournament blues\u201d during a press conference earlier in the week. This is a group that\u2019s spent more than 100 days together this year away from their own homes and beds, and now their international season is over.<\/p>\n

Emily Chancellor had all the Wallaroos staff and players sign her jersey after the Canada match, confirming to reporters that she won\u2019t be playing at another World Cup. Piper Duck<\/a> and Kaitlan Leaney<\/a> also fronted the press, disappointed about the result but upbeat about the future.<\/p>\n

\"EmilyEmily Chancellor<\/a> after playing her final World Cup match \u2013 the flanker has not retired from Wallaroos duty. Picture: supplied.<\/p>\n

12 of the 23 players selected to represent Australia in that quarter-final were aged 25 or younger, which is a real positive four years out from a home World Cup. Desiree Miller<\/a> scored the team\u2019s sole try against the Canadians, but a tough tournament draw seemed to take its toll on the Aussies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first saw the draw come out for the World Cup, we knew we were up against it and getting to the quarters itself was, if we\u2019re super realistic, was going to be an achievement to get out of that pool and we did that,\u201d Yapp said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it meant was we played number one and number two back-to-back which is always going to take it out of this group of players, which I think it did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience that we\u2019ve come across in the last two weeks, it\u2019s just been a challenge for what is a young group. We did problem solve a bit today and we came back out at it\u2026 this group of players are learning through Test matches and we really need them to be learning through competitive fixtures at Super W.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the end of an era for Jo Yapp and the Wallaroos. With Australia falling to Canada 46-5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-149392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}