LONG READ Australia 'should thank its lucky stars' for methodical Kiwi Schmidt

Good things often come in threes. As a schoolboy in London, I can recall only the third of three late-night buses stopping to pick me up. The other two flew past without a glance from the driver. It was at such times I would cherish Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s declaration in Letters Addressed to R.H. Horne, “The luck of the third adventure is proverbial”, and give thanks it was true.

That was written all the way back in 1839, but the origin of the phrase ‘third time’s a charm’ is probably even earlier, rooted in the Holy Trinity of Early Christianity. It is the bigwigs at the top of a recast Rugby Australia power-pyramid who will now be earnestly fingering their rosary beads, wringing their hands and praying the appointment of a New Zealander will produce the desired rugby miracle, third time around.

The first candidate was Crusaders coach Robbie Deans back in 2008. At the time Deans was the most successful club/provincial head coach on the face of planet rugby. He had led the Cantabrians to five Super Rugby titles in eight years and was the hottest ticket on the coaching market.

But towards the end of his six years in Australia, he had been translated laughingly as ‘Dingo’ Deans, the mock-Australian who could not be trusted with the fortunes of the national team. That most reliable barometer of Australian rugby pressure, Quade Cooper, had been shunned for a Twitter outburst in which he called the Wallaby environment ‘toxic’.

Despite taking Australia to a semi-final at the 2011 World Cup and posting a respectable overall win rate of 59%, ‘Dingo’ only won three out of the 18 matches he coached against the All Blacks, and that also attracted the opprobrium of Aussie media outlets and the coterie of ex-players commenting within them. Deans was done on both sides, well and truly cooked before his final exit after the 2013 series against the British and Irish Lions ever materialised.

The pattern was repeated after the 2019 World Cup with the arrival of ex-Chiefs head honcho Dave Rennie, who like Deans was probably the global flavour of the month. Rennie did not last the whole four-year cycle, dumped unceremoniously in favour of Eddie Jones less than nine months before the tournament began.

RA chairman Hamish McLennan did not mince his words at the changeover: “I would rather we have somebody who’s really tough [Eddie Jones] and we win World Cups, than we have a ‘Kumbayah’ session [with Dave Rennie on guitar], everyone holds hands, and we fail.”

Unless Australian rugby can back Schmidt to the hilt, there is no doubt he will fail, whatever the weight of proverbial wisdom.

The most experienced of any Australian coach failed more spectacularly than either of his Kiwi predecessors, but somehow that inconvenient truth has already been forgotten, and the ‘charm of the third adventure’ dispelled.

On his Triple M Breakfast with Marto, Margaux & Dan chat show, ex-Queensland and Wallaby full-back Greg Martin went at it hammer and tongs, before Schmidt has coached a single Wallaby game:

“We’ve had two Kiwis, and both times it’s ended in tears, and we’re about to go down the same track.

“We needed Stephen Larkham, we needed a bloke who has won a World Cup, [and] who is an Australian.

“We’ll get beaten by the Kiwis in July and August and everyone will go, ‘Oh well, that was a dud!’ We’ll sack him [Schmidt], and we’ll be back in the same position again.”

If you believed ‘Marto’, you would end up convinced Jones only failed because he had insufficient time to right the many wrongs inflicted on Australian rugby by Rennie.

That attitude is the problem in a nutshell. Unless Australian rugby can back Schmidt to the hilt, there is no doubt he will fail, whatever the weight of proverbial wisdom.

Schmidt has the credentials his forebears lacked. He has already coached internationally, and in both hemispheres for Ireland and New Zealand. He achieved several ‘firsts’ during his time in the Emerald Isle, scheming Ireland’s first-ever victory over the All Blacks and their maiden away wins on Argentine [2014] and South African [2016] soil. He achieved three Six Nations titles en route to Ireland’s inaugural number one world ranking in 2018. In terms of experience, he starts ahead of the game, rather than behind an 8-ball.

He also starts with his feet rooted to terra firma. At his official unveiling at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney, he ticked all the right boxes.

Schmidt understands the urgency of the situation in Australia – tick:

“I am desperate for the Wallabies to be competitive and if I can help, that’s why I’m here. I think the global rugby family is desperate for the Wallabies to be where they need to be… I am desperate [for] the Wallabies [to be] really competitive in that World Cup and we get through to those really competitive playoff rounds.”

He wants to develop home-grown Australian coaches and a succession plan around them – tick:

“If we can get the job done over the next 18 months and get the momentum heading in the right direction, then I will feel like I’ve done my part and I will be happy to hand on. Or, if there are some Australian coaches that come through, I am really keen to try to help get some of [them] a little bit more experience as well, so they can pitch up and lead the Wallabies.”

He wants to select from home rather than abroad wherever possible – tick:

“There was nothing really stopping overseas selections in Ireland, but that would have been really detrimental to the Irish domestic competition.

“It is a very competitive market in Europe. So, we didn’t select anyone who wasn’t contracted in Ireland, and that worked really well for Ireland.

“It’d be great if we can select almost entirely [from] Australia… rather than chase guys from overseas.”

Unlike Jones, Schmidt will not promise the earth and fail to deliver. He will teach patterns of attack and defence which are easy to understand and digest.

He will play down expectation and not promise to turn water into wine immediately – tick:

“I am not great at selling dreams. Dreams are not tangible. I will probably be a little bit narrow, focused on trying to get to know the people, [getting] to help them perform at their best, combine it as best we can as a team… I don’t think we’re going to get to where we’d like to play immediately.”

Unlike Jones, Schmidt will not promise the earth and fail to deliver. He will teach patterns of attack and defence which are easy to understand and digest, but ones which depend on accuracy in individual technique and reward attention to detail.

He will ask for improvement in the kick-chase [New Zealand kicked six times more than the tournament average at the 2023 World Cup], and rely on Australia’s Aussie Rules background, just as he utilised the Gaelic football instincts of many players in Ireland.

He will teach a traditionally ‘Australian’ version of ball-control rugby once that requirement is met [New Zealand had possession for more minutes – over 20’ – than any other nation]. At the same time, he will look for strikes early in the phase count [New Zealand scored 70% of their tries in phases 1-3, compared to the tournament average of 59%]. He will not demand the miracle pass or offload [New Zealand’s ratio of 14 collisions to every offload compares to 9 to 1 by France and Scotland].

Above all, just like Rod Macqueen back in the noughties, he will not require his charges to shift ball wide and overstretch their skillsets until the spadework has been done on the interior of the field. The All Blacks’ best attacking work was all done on a vertical axis once Schmidt became involved in the coaching.

The following examples come from the 2023 Rugby Championship game against the Wallabies in Melbourne.

Aaron Smith hoists a box kick in the right 15m channel, Scott Barrett recovers the ball on the chase and then Smith top-spins a second kick into the same zone. Barrett tackles Tate McDermott on the very next lineout, with Shannon Frizell picking up the shrapnel for the score. Simple, but deadly effective footy, with no wastage:

It was same theme with ball in hand.

The initial cut is made off lineout by Will Jordan, but there is no attempt to shift wide on the next play despite the break. Hooker Codie Taylor cuts back off his right foot on second phase to keep play parallel to the 15m line and Frizell is still ploughing the same furrow four phases later.

What worked on the right, works just as well on the left.

After Mark Telea wins a high-ball contest, Taylor again breaks off his right foot to bring the ball back inside on the next play despite turnover ball. After a brief flirtation with midfield on the short attacking kick regathered by Jordan, the ball shifts back for Telea to pick up the thread on the left. Minimum risk, maximum reward.

From another turnover kick starter, Smith just pulls number six Frizell and number three Tyrel Lomax over to the 15-5m corridor to inter-pass with Telea down the channel. There is very little change all the way up to the Wallaby goal-line, with only Jordan and Scott Barrett added to the same tactical mix straight ‘up the pipe’.

Of the three Kiwis who either have, or are about to coach the Wallabies, Schmidt has much the best chance of success, despite the dire state of Australian rugby. He has the essential ingredient – the background of a man who had to build a nation up by its bootstraps and teach it how to beat the likes of New Zealand and South Africa, and win championships as if they had every right to expect a victorious outcome.

It will not be easy, and the opposition will be as much implicit and internal as it is overt and external. There will be those who will never accept that Australia needs a foreign coach in order to reclaim its historical status of one of rugby’s great superpowers.

Schmidt will start from the ground up, laying one brick methodically on top of another, both on and off the field. He will select from the home-based contingent wherever possible, and will not ask his charges to do more than their abilities warrant. He will push for that winning outcome, with a readiness to hand the reins back to a native Australian when the time is right. Australia should be thanking its lucky stars indeed to have such a man at the helm, and that the old proverb may yet be proved right.