LONG READ 'Come game day, you're done': Record-breaking Wallaby James Slipper takes first steps on coaching journey

After a couple of failed attempts at retiring from international rugby in the past 12 months, James Slipper knows his playing days are numbered. The number itself is unknown and could remain so for a good while yet. The prop turned 37 in June and will definitely play for the ACT Brumbies in 2027, extending his Super Rugby record of 212 matches, but a fifth Rugby World Cup appearance is far less certain.

“I’ve had quite a few chats with ‘Kissy’ [Wallabies coach Les Kiss],” Slipper, whose 154 Australia caps are a national record, told the 8/9 Rugby Podcast.

“He’s been open with all of us – Bernard Foley, Kurtley Beale – who are in the same boat. It’s a really good opportunity for the young players to run away with it this year and really build their own journey, get some miles into the legs in the jersey.

“And that’s important because you can’t keep relying on older players to just keep playing, because it just doesn’t work like that. You need you need to expose these boys to top rugby.”

So it really wasn’t any surprise when Slipper didn’t feature among the 33 players Kiss named last week for the November conclusion to the Nations Championship.

After playing the first three matches in July, while the Wallabies endured something of a prop shortage, Slipper has spent his time since maintaining appropriate winter levels of fitness and attending to his two young daughters who “just want to pull my hair out”.

But the recent Super Rugby AUS series also gave Slipper the first taste of life after playing – whenever that may be. With forwards coach John Ulugia away with the Wallabies, the Brumbies took the opportunity provided by a short Australian domestic series to stand Slipper in as a specialist scrum coach. With many thousands of scrums packed into a career spanning over 350 first-class games, wisdom oozes from Slipper.

It excused, well… an old fella from a short tournament which is really designed to get extra game time into young players, and gave Slipper a valuable first taste of what will quite probably become his role when he does finally and decisively retire.

“I was like a hybrid coach because technically I was still training as well,” he said. “So I’d coach the set piece, help out Benny (Mowen, Brumbies senior assistant coach) with the lineout and the maul, and then obviously coach the scrum.

I kind of know everything I want to coach. The biggest thing for me was how do I make everyone else understand what I’m thinking?

“But then my boots were on the whole time and I was kind of half in, half out. But I really enjoyed it.

“I learned a lot. And I kind of know everything I want to coach. The biggest thing for me was how do I make everyone else understand what I’m thinking? And it’s always a challenge for a coach, saying it in a way that is understandable. I wouldn’t say I’m the best speaker, but I feel like I can speak on a level the boys can understand well, which is probably one of my strengths.

“I really did enjoy it. It was good fun just to work with Benny and Hoops (Brumbies skills coach Dan Hooper) and Bernie (Stephen Larkham). I really learned a lot.”

But like all best-laid plans, it very nearly unravelled before the first game of the series, when Slipper yet again found himself a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ playing option.

“We played a trial game and Tevita (Alatini), our young tighthead, got concussed. So for the first two rounds, I was technically prop cover – if anyone went down in the warmup, I would have had to play.

“So that’s why I warmed them up really quickly for the first two games, just so there could be no injuries! Thankfully, everyone was good to go and play, but yeah, I would have played if I had to.”

And so, despite this small hiccup, Slipper’s coaching work experience went quite well. But he also quickly noticed one major difference from life as a player.

“I tell you what, game days were so different as a coach!” he laughed.

“As a player, it’s the biggest day of the week. You kind of re-engineer everything backwards from game day, so you prepare and you know all that stuff, where it’s the opposite in coaching.

“Come game day, you’re done. You don’t have any sort of influence. You can obviously prepare the boys, warm them up, speak to them if they need to, but in terms of coaching, you shouldn’t still be coaching on game day. I was stress-free, it was great!

“The biggest days were Monday and Tuesday, working behind the scenes and facilitating training, that’s sort of my new game day as a coach.”

They don’t just slap sessions together and go, ‘all right let’s get better’. There’s all the planning and thought around how we how we go about it, how long we train for. Also, how hard are we going?

And obviously, waking up on Sunday morning not nearly as sore?

“Yeah. I actually woke up and trained most Sundays. That’s how that’s how fresh I was feeling!”

Importantly, the short-term gig hasn’t scared Slipper off the thought of coaching. And it also gave him an extra appreciation of how much the Brumbies staff get through.

“The amount of detail and knowledge and planning that goes into these sessions, that was probably the biggest thing I took away,” he said.

“They don’t just slap sessions together and go, ‘all right let’s get better’. There’s all the planning and thought around how we how we go about it, how long we train for. Also, how hard are we going? What sort of intensity? That stuff was really insightful.”

Eagle-eyed readers may well have noticed Slipper’s former Brumbies and Wallabies team-mate, Nic White, involved with Kiss’ coaching set-up during the Bledisloe Cup. Now learning on the job with the Western Force as a skills coach himself, White is in a similar position to Slipper, trying to share what he knows with a younger playing group.

Slipper thinks recently retired players can be a great help within programmes they’re still very familiar with.

“Yeah, I think it is important. We want the coaching pathway nice and strong. There’s plenty of ex-players who have either gone overseas or played for a long time who have learned so much in the game themselves as players that can easily translate to the new players.

“And yeah, I always think you’ve got to do the hard work. You can’t just roll in and take over the Wallabies as a recent ex-player.

“But I’m a big believer that the more we recycle players into those coaching positions, the better we’ll be as a game in general.”

Though he was the first to admit the ‘learner’ plates were very much on during his first steps on the coaching pathway, Slipper is excited for the next evolution of his record-breaking life in professional rugby. These early days as a hybrid player/coach have only solidified his ambitions.

“Yeah, I’m still leaning towards [coaching],” he said. “Like, I’ve dabbled a little bit now, and I’m kind of in that stage where I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Not just from coaching, but just life in general, different industries.

“I really love the game. I’ve obviously played it for long enough to tell everyone I enjoy the game. So, at some point I want to, for lack of a better term, give back to the game. I want to stay involved in the game. Whether that’s coaching at the highest level, the lowest level, I don’t know yet.

“It’s probably something I’ll look at more throughout this next year when the career starts winding up. But yeah, at this stage I’ve really enjoyed it and we’ll see what happens.”