After the Wallabies came within a whisker of winning the Lions series, then defeated the world-champion Springboks at Ellis Park, Ireland are claiming the Wallabies coach as one of their own.
Ireland love a winner and over the past few weeks they have reclaimed Joe Schmidt with an embarrassing passion.
As we all know, Schmidt is a Kiwi and if you are a half-decent Kiwi, that’s close enough to being an Australian. So we Aussies have him.
He is no longer Joseph O’Schmidt. He is now Wallaby Joe.
READ MORE
Jokes aside, Schmidt deserves every piece of praise that comes his way.
However, the path he has followed to move the Wallabies from the farcical, embarrassing performances at the last World Cup to coming within a whisker of winning the Lions series before shattering a 62-year losing streak at Ellis Park, has not taken rocket science.
Schmidt is part of an uncommon outbreak of common sense inside Rugby Australia that has been absent for the best part of two decades.
There are two separate stories that have combined to produce Schmidt’s Wallaby success.
When Schmidt was Ireland’s head coach across 2019 and into the RWC campaign, he lost his way. Despite repeated failures across the entirety of the 2019 season, Schmidt insisted on sticking with a highly limited attacking game plan which hamstrung a talented Irish team that should have gone far deeper into the tournament.
Ireland were smashed in the quarter-finals and Schmidt limped back home to New Zealand to contemplate his performance.
The other side of the story has its origins in November of 2022. The Wallabies, under their then head coach Dave Rennie, had put in a superb performance to draw in Paris and almost upset Ireland in Dublin. Then Rennie made a coaching decision that would cost him his job. With RWC 2023 looming, against Italy he rested his starting team and gave his extended squad players some much-needed international experience.
The chain of events this understandable and logical selection decision created has led to Australia winning at Ellis Park for the first time since 1963.
The Wallabies lost to Italy and lunacy erupted inside the Rugby Australia board room. Against all the advice from the rugby people on the board, Rennie was sacked nine months before RWC 2023 and Eddie Jones was appointed.
Eddie Jones arrived and wiped the Wallabies’ slate clean with a new set of assistant coaches. He then dropped the talismanic leader Michael Hooper and introduced a completely new set of playing systems. Just months before the World Cup, it caused utter chaos within the Wallaby team.
Meanwhile, Schmidt had gone back to his roots and was appointed as assistant coach to the New Zealand team that could so easily have won the 2023 RWC final.
With the sacking of Rennie the Wallabies poured two years of development down the drain, while in NZ Schmidt kept developing himself as a coach. As a former schoolteacher, Schmidt understands that education is lifelong. Schmidt evaluated his decisions of 2019 and worked at correcting his mistakes.
There is a quote from Stoic philosophy that every successful coach must follow: “A true master is an eternal apprentice: the higher you climb, the more you see there is to learn.”
Schmidt was following the path of the master.
Meanwhile in Oz, after the train crash that was the Wallabies at RWC 2023, a boardroom “coup d’état” was enacted. Two experienced former Wallabies – and not so-called business heavyweights – were placed into the leadership roles. Former World Cup winner Dan Herbert became chairman and Phil Waugh, a past Wallaby openside flanker, was appointed CEO.
Here the rugby gods merged all these stories. Waugh and Herbert dismissed Jones and Schmidt was appointed.
Schmidt brought the experience of his life’s work to the Wallabies. The mistakes of an overly rigid 2019 Irish game plan were abandoned.
Schmidt appointed older, highly experienced coaches to his staff. Mike Cron and Laurie Fisher have both been around a long time. Old warriors were needed to help lead a young team that had lost its identity and confidence.
For many years I have believed that, compared to the best on the planet, the Wallaby teams have been lacking in that most basic of rugby principles: fitness.
An absolutely crucial aspect of the Wallabies’ improvement is that Schmidt has worked these Wallabies into supreme condition. Sports psychologists will testify that a big benefit of physical fitness is a lift in self-belief and confidence.
Schmidt has lifted the Wallabies’ belief in themselves, each other and their coaches. Key principles that have been lacking from Australian rugby for many years.
Schmidt has also benefited from the difficult but correct decision Herbert and Waugh made at end of 2024 to cut the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby franchise and concentrate the shallow Australian talent pool into four Super teams. Winning is a habit and in 2025 the Australian Super teams performed to far higher standards than they have for many seasons.
In the knowledge that players need at least 20 caps before they feel truly comfortable in the chaos of Test match rugby, since his appointment Schmidt has stuck with a core group of players and his captain Harry Wilson. He has also fought to bring key players who are contracted overseas back into the Wallaby team. Will Skelton proved how important this policy is to a small rugby country like Australia.
The path to winning at Ellis Park has not been sprinkled with rose petals. Last year Schmidt and the Wallabies were humiliated in the Rugby Championship, coming last with a points differential of minus 106.
Unlike the leadership that sacked Rennie, Herbert and Waugh held firm. Their rugby commonsense told them the Wallabies will need time and they have been rewarded for their faith.
The culmination of all of these decisions is that Schmidt now has a competitive group of about 25 international quality players that he can select from.
The essence of Schmidt’s metamorphosis is not just that the Wallabies have won. It is that his Irish attacking plan of 2019 can only be found in the history books and he has returned the Wallabies to a style of game that is uniquely Australian. The Wallabies have played magnificent, intelligent, running rugby that has tapped into both the Australian tradition and spirit.
While there remains a long season ahead, one thing is certain: all you Irish can forget claiming back “Joseph O’Schmidt”.
Well done, Wallaby Joe.
