Lions boss Andy Farrell predicts the Wallabies will be a “force to be reckoned with” at the 2027 World Cup, but Joe Schmidt maintains he has no plans on backflipping on his decision to finish up as Australia’s head coach one year out from the tournament.
After the Wallabies stunned the Lions 22-12 with a courageous, disciplined and accurate performance in the wet, Schmidt was asked whether he would reconsider walking away from the head coaching role in 12 months.
But Schmidt, who initially only signed on through to the Lions series before being convinced to stay on for another 12 months to allow Les Kiss to take over once finishing his commitments with the Reds, said his family commitments meant he hadn’t entertained anything but exiting the role.
“I’m looking forward to Les Kiss coming in and taking over,” Schmidt told reporters following the famous 10-point with at Sydney’s Olympic Park.
“I actually apologised to the players a little while ago.
“I bit one of their heads off after my son [Luke, who suffers from epilepsy] had had a bad day. I can normally separate the two things, but it does impact me when he’s had a bad day. I know that I have a short enough shelf life and need to be more present at home.
“I haven’t been home for two months so as much as I just think they’re a great group of young men, there’s other things that I need to make sure I tick off.”
The Wallabies took another step forward under Joe Schmidt after beating the Lions in Sydney on August 2. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
The victory was the latest indication that the Wallabies are getting back on track following the nation’s ugly 2023 World Cup campaign, where the decision to parachute Eddie Jones into the head coaching role at the expense of Dave Rennie came back to bite Rugby Australia.
But after securing six wins from 13 Tests in 2024, including a famous win over England at Twickenham, the Wallabies took another step forward under Schmidt by beating the Lions in Sydney.
The victory came a week after being sunk by a controversial last-minute try to Hugo Keenan, which ensured the Lions won the series after winning comfortably in the opening Test in Brisbane.
The competitive series did plenty to end talk that the Lions might brush the Wallabies in 12 years when the famous side is due to return to Australia.
Farrell, who previously served as Schmidt’s right-hand man in Ireland, reiterated his earlier comments last week by saying that talk was “insulting” and added that the Wallabies were looming as a threat at the 2027 World Cup.
“The Wallabies’ progress in the last 18 months has been through the roof, and look at the side out there over the last three weeks, they are one hell of a team,” he said.
“I said to Joe out there on the pitch, I think that special things are going to happen for this team over the next 18 months, and when the World Cup comes around, they will be a force to be reckoned with.
“They have got some special athletes and some special players, and it’s not a surprise to us how they have performed over the last couple of weeks.”
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt maintains that he’s not having second doubts about his finish date with the national team. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Schmidt playfully said Farrell knew what he was talking about, but added that there was a strong element of truth to the respected coach’s comments.
“I believe everything ‘Faz’ tells me,” Schmidt said. “Faz and I would be good friends, go back a long way, have worked together a lot and would also be quite like-minded around probably studying other teams, and I’d like to think that he’s right.”
Across the three Tests, the Lions (68 points) only accumulated one more point than the Wallabies. While the Wallabies also were in the lead for almost double the amount of time as the Lions, having raced out to a big lead in two of the final three Tests before being run down in Melbourne at the death.
Asked if he felt like the Wallabies were just one per cent away from winning the Lions series, Schmidt said it was a moot point.
“We can’t get those points back,” he said. “We can only try to win the points that are ahead of us.
“I think I’ve said before I’m very boring and pragmatic, and all we can do is try to affect what happens to us in the future and try to control as much of that as possible by trying to grow.
“The one thing I would say is I felt we grew through the series. We lost the first half of the series poorly. We won the second half. We played well in the first half of the second test. Didn’t succeed eventually in that Test, but I felt we deserved to win both halves today.”
The fine finish to the series also served as another example of what might have been had they arrived in Brisbane battle-hardened and ready to go.
Instead, the Wallabies missed the jump and were smacked in the opening half as the Lions won the physical contest with Rob Valetini and Will Skelton not selected after returning from injuries.
Regrets?
“I guess it just is what it is,” he said. “Again, I’m not great at looking back and having regrets. I’m just trying to plan a way forward.
“With the Super Rugby finishing when it did, even then we didn’t get the Brumbies back until quite late before we played that Fijian game. By the time we’d done that, we lost Noah [Lolesio]. That was a pretty big loss for us, but Tom Lynagh did such a fantastic job making his starting debut for the Wallabies in those three Tests we’d just had. Then losing him with 30 plus minutes to go, I felt we worked our way through that. So yeah, maybe.
“I’m not really going to look back at maybes. I’m just going to try to take a breath and then think about what’s next in the Rugby Championship.”
Christy Doranhttps://https://ift.tt/yCNxqzu Wallabies have ‘gone through the roof’ under Schmidt – but coach says beating Lions won’t change his end date
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