Rugby Australia’s pursuit of Joe Schmidt likely to lean heavily on David Nucifora

Rugby Australia (RA) are pursuing former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt to take over the role vacated by Eddie Jones following a bitterly disappointing World Cup in France in which the Wallabies failed to get out of the pool stage. The names of Michael Cheika, Stephen Larkham and Dan McKellar have also been bandied about as potential successors.

Schmidt was part of Ian Foster’s coaching team that saw New Zealand reach the final only to be beaten by the reigning world champions South Africa. The All Blacks ended Ireland’s hopes in the quarter-final in a memorable clash at the Stade de France.

The key to persuading Schmidt may lie with David Nucifora, the IRFU’s outgoing high-performance director, a role he fulfilled since 2014, where he oversaw a period of considerable success in the men’s game, at 20s, Sevens and senior level.

During a five-year time frame beginning in 2014 when he joined the IRFU, Nucifora had a close working relationship with Schmidt before the latter stepped down as Ireland coach following the 2019 World Cup in Japan. The 61-year-old Nucifora has agreed to an advisory role with RA and is likely to have a significant influence on who takes over as coach of the Wallabies.

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David Humphreys will take over from Nucifora as the IRFU’s high-performance director after the Paris Olympics but the former Ireland outhalf will work alongside the Australian from March next year to facilitate the changeover. Nucifora’s last official engagement will be to watch the Ireland men’s and women’s Sevens teams chase an Olympic medal.

RA recently confirmed that Peter Horne would take over as director of high-performance next March, when the Sydney native finishes up a similar role at World Rugby. Phil Waugh, chief executive at RA said: “We’ll be in market next week with expressions of interest and ideally we want to be having an appointment in certainly Q1 (quarter one) in ‘24 given that the Welsh are here in July.”

That puts a timeline of the end of March as a rough estimate for the appointment of the new coach. Waugh continued: “So it is a bit of a sprint. We understand that time is against us, but equally it’s really important process to get right.

“This is a journey and this is the start of that journey and a really exciting path ahead for the game here in Australia and we need to be very disciplined and go through the right process to get the best possible people into the organisation.”

Cheika, the former Leinster coach, who led the Wallabies to the 2015 World Cup final, stepped down as Argentina coach after the last tournament. Larkham, was backs coach with the Wallabies (2015-2019) and at Munster before returning to take over the Brumbies, while McKellar, previously as assistant coach with the Aussies, is currently head coach at the Leicester Tigers.

Word from Australia is that Schmidt is the preferred choice, having excelled with Ireland and then proved a catalyst for All Blacks’ fortunes when added to Foster’s coaching ticket ahead of the most recent World Cup in France. Nucifora could occupy the kingmaker role, but Schmidt will likely want assurances that good governance structures are in place in Australia to allow him to do his job.

Nucifora, who quit Australian rugby’s high-performance programme in 2013 after failing to push through reform, will return in August.

Waugh said: “It would be dependent on the applicants [being] open to what’s going to drive immediate success, but equally how to drive sustained success. We’ve historically got into this rhythm of it’s all about a World Cup. You end up in a World Cup cycle and you’ve seen through the success of Ireland being a really good example.

“They’ve never got through past the quarter-finals at a World Cup but they’ve been winning consistently at provincial level and at Test-match level and therefore it drives engagement with spectators and fans and the community.

“So I’m really interested in creating winning Wallabies and winning Wallaroos [the Women’s team]. The Sevens team are on the right path both across the men’s and the women’s. But what’s really important is winning consistently and not just having a sugar hit of a really successful World Cup and then dipping afterwards.”

Waugh also said the next Wallabies coach didn’t need to be Australian. “We need the best possible coach to lead the system and the culture. What I will say is that our competitive advantage in sport is being Australian and so that Australian way and that Australian culture needs to be driven through the team. But that can be driven through a coach not from Australia.”

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