{"id":812965,"date":"2026-07-20T20:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812965\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:54:08","slug":"wallabies-why-the-joe-schmidt-tenure-was-a-failure-and-the-statement-that-doesnt-wash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812965\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallabies: Why the Joe Schmidt tenure was a ‘failure’ and the statement that ‘doesn’t wash’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rugby Australia<\/a> has done a reasonable job celebrating the Wallabies brand and selling the green and gold dream over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

Three sold-out venues for the July Nations Championship fixtures, including the 52,000 seater in Brisbane just nights after a State of Origin clash, speaks to the strong job the governing body did getting people through the turnstiles. The strong crowds came off the back of a mega Lions series in 2025, where cashed-up punters came down under after the previous tour in South Africa was played behind closed doors because of Covid-19.<\/p>\n

But the reality is that the biggest area the national body has struggled in over the past two-and-a-half years, especially in the past 12 months, is on the field.<\/p>\n

In high-performance sport, there\u2019s only one measurement that really defines success: winning. On that note, Joe Schmidt<\/a> failed.<\/p>\n

The New Zealander won just 12 of 31 Tests<\/a> to finish with a win-loss record of 38.71 per cent \u2013 0.5 per cent better than his Kiwi compatriot Dave Rennie, who won 13 from 34 Tests. Rennie\u2019s Wallabies also drew three matches (each in 2020), meaning Schmidt\u2019s overall losing percentage of 61.29 per cent is the worst in Australian history since the game turned professional.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why the perception around Schmidt is better than the reality, with the Wallabies<\/a> still ranked No.8 in the world.<\/p>\n

Italian job showed two great areas of improvement<\/p>\n

The Wallabies\u2019 57-10 demolition job over Italy was just reward for a hard-working group, who at last gave Schmidt and assistant coach Laurie Fisher something to smile about.<\/p>\n

Up against a second-string Italian side missing their suspended coach Gonzalo Quesada and several of their best players, including Sebastian Negri, Niccolo Cannone, Tommaso Menoncello and Ange Capuozzo, the Wallabies put the Azzurri away comprehensively.<\/p>\n

Nations Championship school reports: Grading every country from head boy Springboks to the pupil in detention<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, it looked like Italy, who were smashed by Japan earlier in July, were already on the plane back to Rome; the Italians\u2019 attitude, goal-line defence and discipline were horrific.<\/p>\n

Other Wallabies sides of the past decade haven\u2019t quite put away sides as easily as Schmidt\u2019s men did, so that factor should be applauded despite bombing some more tries in the second half.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt the Wallabies\u2019 attacking breakdown and improving set-piece helped in the nine-tries-to-two clinic over Italy, too.<\/p>\n

Three selections Schmidt got right\u2026 eventually<\/p>\n

They might have been barely used last year, but the Wallabies\u2019 three biggest movers in July were hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa, lock Josh Canham and half-back Ryan Lonergan.<\/p>\n

Paenga-Amosa\u2019s set-piece work was outstanding, Canham\u2019s physicality, lineout prowess and skill were a feature, and Lonergan\u2019s pass and distribution were first-class.<\/p>\n

But the question is why it took so long for Schmidt to get the trio into the side?<\/p>\n

While Schmidt might argue he\u2019s got them up to speed and ready for incoming Wallabies coach Les Kiss, he\u2019s also slowed their development and exposure at the Test environment.<\/p>\n

Schmidt\u2019s statement over 10 farce that doesn\u2019t wash<\/p>\n

The Wallabies have certainly had some misfortune with injuries over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

But the farcical merry-go-round situation at fly-half is somewhat down to Rugby Australia\u2019s retention efforts, and certainly their inability to identify the best playmakers in the country.<\/p>\n

That was clear when Carter Gordon left rugby to join the NRL in mid-2024.<\/p>\n

Rugby Transfers: Test-capped Wallaby returns to Australia in World Cup bid while Newcastle Red Bulls release recruit<\/a><\/p>\n

The blonde-haired playmaker was clearly Australia\u2019s most talented playmaker yet RA, with Schmidt as head coach and deeply involved in the retention and recruitment of players, barely put up a fight to keep Gordon.<\/p>\n

They tabled an offer to him, but it didn\u2019t necessarily scream that they wanted to keep him. That was also reflected in Schmidt\u2019s comments on the record, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love Carter to stay and to be in the mix for the Wallabies, but if he doesn\u2019t, then I\u2019m excited about working with whoever we do select in that position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A fraction over 12 months later, with the governing body not sold on their options at home, RA paid out some compensation to the Gold Coast Titans and lured him back to Super Rugby.<\/p>\n

The unusual situation wasn\u2019t too dissimilar to Noah Lolesio\u2019s either.<\/p>\n

While Schmidt pinned his faith in Lolesio for much of 2024 after Gordon decided to go, the 26-year-old playmaker signed with Japanese outfit Toyota Shuttles in early 2025. It came after yet another modest offer.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi coach then bemoaned the rotating door in the halves.<\/p>\n

Kiss\u2019s biggest call coming up<\/p>\n

The new Wallabies coach will name his first squad on Thursday.<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t expected to be any wildly different selections from the playing group Schmidt selected.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

Prop James Slipper is likely to step down for now to allow the next generation some time to grow before next year\u2019s World Cup, while midfielder Len Ikitau has an injury cloud hovering over him. That could see Hunter Paisami (knee) and Josh Flook (calf) return despite the former Reds midfield pairing not being 100 per cent fit either.<\/p>\n

Tom Hooper\u2019s injury could also allow Kiss to bring back hard-hitting lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto seamlessly.<\/p>\n

Kiss is also believed to be weighing up calling up two-time World Cup member Jordan Petaia.<\/p>\n

But the biggest call that Kiss will likely have to make over the next week is just who will captain the side.<\/p>\n

While Harry Wilson enjoyed the captaincy duties under Schmidt\u2019s watch, it\u2019s believed Kiss is considering whether that\u2019s in the best interest of the group going forward.<\/p>\n

Kiss will also have to balance whether to give one or two regulars the Test against Japan off, or ask them to continue despite knowing there are another 11 matches left to run in 2026.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Five reasons the Nations Championship won rugby\u2019s heart and the flaws it must fix<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby Australia has done a reasonable job celebrating the Wallabies brand and selling the green and gold dream…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,1379,818,1182,1381,92253,229246,44,760,85],"class_list":["post-812965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-features","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-joe-schmidt","tag-les-kiss","tag-nations-championship","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812965","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=812965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}