Les Kiss eyes surprise coaching role before taking charge of Wallabies

Les Kiss is interested in another coaching role before taking on the top job with the Wallabies in mid-2026. Kiss has expressed an interest in joining the coaching staff of the AUNZ Invitational XV, who will take on the British & Irish Lions in Adelaide on July 12.

Australia and New Zealand will combine rugby forces for the first time since the 1980s when the Lions visit Adelaide Oval in two months. Rugby Australia have announced that former All Blacks boss Ian Foster has joined the AUNZ management team, but not necessarily as head coach.

Former All Blacks Aaron Smith and Richie Mo’unga have both declared their interest in playing for the representative side in this historic fixture, while others like Michael Hooper and Joseph Manu have also been linked to the team.

Kiss would also “love” to be involved, should the Queensland Rugby Union give their current coach permission to take part. In the meantime, Kiss will continue to coach the Queensland Reds this season and next, before succeeding Joe Schmidt in the Wallabies job.

“There was a small chat around the Australia-New Zealand one,” Kiss said in an interview with Michael Atkinson for Stan Sport.

“Certainly, if it can fit and it fits with the QRU’s thoughts then I’d love to be able to do something like that.

“I think as coaches, there’s Barbarians experience and all those types of things, so to be involved in one of those types of games would be fantastic.

“The one we’d probably target is the Australia-New Zealand one.”

After months of rumours, Kiss was unveiled by Rugby Australia as the next Wallabies coach on Wednesday. On a rainy morning in Sydney, Kiss joined Schmidt, RA CEO Phil Waugh and Director of High-Performance Peter Horne at a press conference.

Kiss follows in the footsteps of Michael Cheika, Dave Rennie, Eddie Jones and Schmidt in quick succession as Australia’s head coach. The former Australian rugby league international will take over after Australian leg of the new Nations Cup in about 15 months.

This is the second time Schmidt has re-signed with RA, having initially agreed to take charge of the national team through to the Lions Series. But after agreeing to remain in the role through to this year’s Rugby Championship, Schmidt will stay on a bit longer.

“It’s funny, it seemed like a long time but then by the time I’d already agreed to do TRC, it didn’t seem that much further into the future. I suppose as you stack them up, it didn’t seem like an extra year, it seemed like an extra six months or eight months,” Schmidt said on Wednesday.

“I think the friendship that goes back a long way made that a lot easier. The family situation, the support from RA around maybe getting the family over a little bit more often to Sydney where I’m usually based, that made it a little bit easier as well.”