Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has confirmed he won’t don an All Blacks tracksuit at the 2027 Rugby World Cup, saying he couldn’t “suddenly swap sides” after building such strong bonds with Australia’s players, staff and supporters over the past two years.
As revealed by this masthead, Schmidt said loyalty to the Wallabies was behind the decision to rule himself out of the race for the vacant All Blacks coaching job, after he was sounded out last month following the sacking of Scott Robertson.
Schmidt, who was an assistant coach for the All Blacks in 2022-23, was immediately in the mix as a potential candidate to return to the New Zealand coaching staff.
But the 60-year-old swiftly removed himself from the conversation, and in a media briefing with Australian journalists on Friday, explained why.
“It [coaching with the All Blacks] is an incredible job, obviously I’ve been involved with the All Blacks before and thoroughly enjoyed it,” Schmidt said.
“[But] you build a loyalty to the players you’re working with and the staff that you’re working with, and even to the people who’ve supported us. Allianz Stadium last year, when we played the Argentinians, it was fantastic. The same in Townsville and Newcastle, and Perth for the ABs game. The support during the Lions series … I feel like I can’t just walk out and swap sides.
Joe Schmidt turned down a return to the All Blacks.Credit: Getty Images
“It wasn’t like that with the All Blacks. I’d finished with the All Blacks when Peter Horne got me to come over to the Australian side [in 2023].
“Whoever gets the job, the All Blacks are always formidable, their player pool [strength] is evidenced by the way they finish in Super Rugby on a regular basis, playing the finals, and we’d love to get a team in there this year into the finals because I think there’s a few teams that are building really well.
“So, I guess with the loyalty that you have to the group you’re working with, you can’t suddenly swap sides. That’s how I feel anyway.”
Schmidt sidestepped questions about a role with the Wallabies through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup, saying he would be travelling to Dublin to spend time with his new grandson after handing over to Les Kiss in July.
But in a further blow to New Zealand rugby, who’d hoped to get Schmidt back into their high-performance system, he said he doesn’t see himself coaching after the looming World Cup.
Schmidt also opened up on several other issues in Australian rugby, including how the unusual handover to Kiss will work and his thoughts on NRL star Angus Crichton’s transition to rugby.
Schmidt will coach the Wallabies in three Tests before Kiss takes control. The Reds coach will, however, be involved in selecting the Wallabies squad for those Tests, and will join the team camp for some, or all, of the month, depending on how far Queensland progress in Super Rugby.
Joe Schmidt and Les Kiss, the current and future Wallabies coaches.Credit: Getty Images
“I’d envisage him being at the selection table for sure, because I’m utterly invested in you know a longer-term vision, albeit it’ll be a short-term focus once we actually get into match weeks there,” Schmidt said. “Our plan … is that he’ll spend the Brisbane week [France] with us and potentially the Perth week [Italy] with us so the last two weeks, and if they [the Reds] go deep he might not be in Sydney.”
Schmidt said decisions around where Crichton would end up in rugby would be “for Les to decide” but he said taking the Roosters recruit on the Spring Tour would be helpful in his move back to the game.
Schmidt handed another Rooster Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii a Test debut at Twickenham in 2024, six weeks after he finished in the NRL, but said a mix of tactics and injuries were a factor there.
Angus Crichton would benefit from going on the Spring Tour, believes Joe Schmidt.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Kiss will have to weigh up the benefits of giving the Roosters star maximum time to adapt, against the negatives of not using the Spring Tour to bed down the cohesion of a backline headed for the Rugby World Cup.
“I think with Angus Crichton, with Lenny being so influential – and I thought he really deserved some of the recognition he got last year – it would be hard to see Lenny being out of the picture,” Schmidt said.
“It would depend on how things panned out, but one of the real advantages of bringing a guy like Angus in early is that he can still train with the team. There’s a lot of time spent on the grass that might not be on the weekend when the cameras are on the players, and so even orientating himself during that period might be part of the transition.”
Schmidt said the findings of the Wallabies’ end-of-season review, which were presented to the squad at a January camp, identified consistency in performance as a major work-on for 2026.
Though the Wallabies fell away in the second-half of the year, the fact an injury-depleted and weary Australian side scored five tries and pushed France past halftime gave Schmidt encouragement about the growth and capability of the squad, particularly after he’d watched France play superbly to beat Ireland in the Six Nations opener on Friday morning in Paris.
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