Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle revealed a hit-list of Wallabies coaching targets had already been drawn up prior to Michael Cheika’s decision to step aside, and she expects a new head coach will be signed by Christmas.
Prior to Cheika's announcement he’d walk away on Sunday - and revealing he has “no relationship” with the RugbyAU chief executive - Castle spoke to Australian media in the hours after the Wallabies’ loss to England on Saturday.
Castle expressed dissatisfaction with the Wallabies’ 47% win rate over the previous four years, and said a thorough review of the national program would be conducted by Director of Rugby Scott Johnson in the coming weeks.
Unaware Cheika would be announcing his departure the following day, Castle said he’d earned the right to take his time on a decision but indicated strongly the now ex-Wallabies coach would not be re-appointed, when asked if there was any scenario where it could happen.
“He has previously been on record saying that if we didn’t win he would not be the Wallabies coach going forward. We will work through that process with him,” Castle said.
It appears even winning a World Cup may not have been enough for Cheika to stay on as head coach, given Castle also revealed there'd already been significant work put into a list of potential coaching targets.
"We have been doing a lot of work to make sure we understood from a market perspective who we think the right coaches could be for Rugby Australia and who might be available and so that work has been done and continues to be done and so that will be part of the review process,” Castle said.
Asked if Eddie Jones was on the list, Castle said: "I understand he is contracted through (to 2021) with England and, as I said, we’ve done the work on different names, different understandings. We’ve got a list of people and we know who we will be talking to.”
Kiwi Dave Rennie has been linked with the job, but there are many Test coaches finishing with their teams after the World Cup, including Ireland’s Joe Schmidt.
Castle defended the decision of the Rugby Australia board at the end of last year to not remove Cheika, despite concerns the Wallabies were not in a realistic position to win the World Cup.
"I think we did a thorough review at the end of last year and we looked at the options that we had available to us that could not just think about Rugby World Cup but think about the longer-term options for rugby in Australia,” Castle said.
"We made the decision in appointing Scott Johnson into that (DOR) role and to think about, yes, the improvements he could bring to the program in the short-term but definitely with the long-term strategy as well.”
Castle said she was satisfied with Johnson conducting the review of the World Cup, despite the DOR being one of three Wallabies selectors.
Asked if she was satisfied with the Wallabies’ results in the four-year cycle since the last World Cup, Castle said she wasn’t, but believed the benefits of structural change below the Wallabies were already beginning to bear fruit.
"I don’t think anyone would think that he have been satisfied with the results. I think it has been a very challenging time,” Castle said.
"As I said, we looked very long and hard at the end of last year and what we felt we needed to put in place and that’s not just about the Wallabies head coach, that’s about putting a high performance plan in place that allows growth and development of out 16’s, 18’s, right up to our Wallabies and we have seen some improvements because of that processes in place, with our 18’s winning and our 20’s winning, or nearly winning, but performing really well.
"And the integration of the Super Rugby franchises into the Wallabies up and down and working much more closely together is the system that we need and we need it to work really well. So there have been some changes already. Those changes will put us in a much stronger places moving into the next four years."
.@RugbyAU CEO Raelene Castle has written to #Wallabies fans following our RWC exit.https://t.co/pKdQyUS9ZM
— Rugby Australia (@RugbyAU) October 20, 2019
Responding to suggestions the future of the code in Australia had rested on the Wallabies winning the World Cup, Castle said that was not a “realistic” equation.
"There is no doubt it gives you the icing when the Wallabies are going really well you get momentum and all those sports fans jump on board and support Rugby Australia,” Castle said.
"But there are lots of other great things happening in Rugby Australia. Women have qualified for the Olympics, we’ve got our men going into qualifications this month, in the next few weeks, participation numbers are strong.
"So the whole sort of dramatic 'this is (for) the future of the sport' is just not realistic. Do we need the Wallabies performing consistently and winning games and being in the fight for Bledisloes and World Cups? Absolutely. And that is the process and the structure that we are putting in place.”
Castle also paid tribute to departing Wallabies veterans who played their last game in the quarter-final defeat.
"And that’s what hard at a Rugby World Cup when you have these guys who have been loyal servants of the game, some of them have given 10- 12 years’ service at the highest levels and they are all absolutely gutted in there,” Castle said.
"There’s tears because what they did do in this campaign was train really, really hard and those guys wanted to go out on a winning note and they haven’t done that.
"But when you take some distance away from this performance tonight we’ll see how much those guys, those amazing players ... guys who have given great service and they will go down as legends of the game."
