{"id":78586,"date":"2025-08-18T23:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T23:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78586\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T23:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T23:36:12","slug":"joe-schmidt-david-campese-wallabies-vs-springboks-opinion-reaction-australian-legend-eats-humble-pie-after-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78586\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Schmidt, David Campese, Wallabies vs Springboks opinion, reaction, Australian legend eats humble pie after column"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wallabies icon David Campese<\/a> admits he is eating “copious amounts of humble pie” after his stinging criticism of Joe Schmidt blew up in his face on Sunday (AEST).<\/a><\/p>\n

Rugby World Cup winner Campese has been a regular critic of the Wallabies coach since he took over from Eddie Jones following a disastrous 2023 campaign.<\/p>\n

Campese is unhappy that a New Zealander is coaching Australia’s national team and he took to X after it emerged that James O’Connor would make his comeback against the Springboks in the opening Rugby Championship Test at Ellis Park.<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 Rugby Championship with every match streaming live and on demand on the home of rugby, Stan Sport<\/a><\/p>\n

“I can see why Joe Schmidt has never won a RWC. He has no idea about rugby. Clueless. This shows us why,” Campese wrote in a since deleted message.<\/p>\n

“Very happy for James, who should have been on the bench for the Lions. Ben (Donaldson]) at 10. Under (incoming Wallabies coach Les) Kiss, it is not going to look any better.”<\/p>\n

Campese’s comments did not age well as the Wallabies came from 22-0 down to stun the two-time reigning world champions 38-22 and end a 62 year drought at South Africa’s Ellis Park fortress.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Scandal’ as late penalty decision splits football pundits<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Madge defends Walsh after return to form for Broncos<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Inside the commentary booth as stony-faced greats grappled disbelief<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

Joe Schmidt and David Campese.\u00a0Getty\/Nine<\/p>\n

Schmidt is a former World Rugby coach of the year who will pass the baton to Queensland Reds mentor Kiss next year.<\/p>\n

“OK, so I’ll admit, I’m sitting here in the Brisbane sunshine eating copious amounts of humble pie,” Campese wrote in his Planet Rugby column.<\/p>\n

“And, given the performance by the Wallabies, it’s actually the sweetest of pies and I don’t mind swallowing the lot!<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST! Wallabies fans in living rooms across the country were overcome with pride as Australia produced one of the nation’s greatest all-time victories<\/p>\n

“As a player I took risks. I never wanted to settle for the mediocre \u2013 and sometimes, as a result, I’ll admit I enjoyed some of the highest rugby moments and some huge lows too. And when it comes to punditry I’ll wear my heart on my sleeve and do the same, so I make no apologies for my depth of feeling earlier this week when it comes to the Aussie fortunes.<\/p>\n

“However, I’ll claim kudos for my support of James O’Connor at 10, something I called for for an entire month during the Lions series and now can take great pride in his performance, especially as he’s someone I’d like to call a mate. JOC was superb in his directness, his ambition and that wonderful 35m left hand pass to set up the Max Jorgensen try.”<\/p>\n

The Springboks will be without injured quartet Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Edwill van der Merwe in Sunday’s (AEST) rematch in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

David Campese of Australia unleashes his famous goose step against the Barbarians at Twickenham in 1992. Australia won 30-20.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Campese, the third-leading try-scorer in Test rugby history with 64, is demanding more success in South Africa.<\/p>\n

“Like it or not, I came from an era of Aussie excellence; my teammates from back then and also me take it incredibly personally when the Wallabies don’t excel. Maybe we’re a tad arrogant about it, but they carry a legacy of two World Cups \u2013 and, absolutely key for me, a style of play that was heads up, exciting, attacking and intuitive,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“And it was fantastic to see Australia deliver exactly that in Jo’burg. It was the antithesis of the Joe Schmidt playbook method \u2013 moreover a joyous display of transition rugby, played at huge tempo, with high skill level and great intuition. It was almost as if Harry Wilson and his troops said “F— it, let’s give it a crack’ in a magnificent counter attacking effort and I’m mighty proud of the way they responded.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies icon David Campese admits he is eating “copious amounts of humble pie” after his stinging criticism of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-78586","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\/78586","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=78586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}