Les Kiss will become the new Wallabies coach from June next year. Photo / Photosport
Many decades ago, New Zealand Prime Minister Rob Muldoon made an anti-Australian quip for the ages. If a Kiwi emigrated to Australia, said Muldoon, the collective IQ went up on both sides of the Tasman.
On the other hand, in defence of the intelligence of Aussies, you could offer some of the super bright leaders, both coaches and captains, of the Wallabies.
Les Kiss, who takes over from Joe Schmidt as Wallaby coach in June next year, will take on a position that’s been filled by some extremely astute Australian rugby men over the years.
You could start with Bob Dwyer, who coached the Wallabies to World Cup victory in 1991. Dwyer managed to keep a keen sense of humour despite the pressures of his job.
He was prepared to make himself a figure of fun for the sake of the team. What looked in the World Cup semifinal against the All Blacks in Dublin like a moment of spontaneous genius from the Wallabies’ star wing David Campese, was actually drilled into Campese at training by Dwyer.
In a pool game against Argentina, Dwyer noticed how a mistake by his team eventually led to a try. Campese, scrambling to pick up a poor pass, found the only direction he could run was across the field. So he ran and ran until he found a gap to cut through, feeding centre Tim Horan, who scored under the posts.
Dwyer then tried to persuade Campese to run a slanting angle at training, which went against every instinct in the wing’s body.
Although his own playing days as a flanker for the Randwick club were long gone, eventually the 50-year-old coach decided the only way to persuade Campese was to run the line himself. So he went scuttling crab-like across the paddock while Campese laughed and slow hand clapped on the sideline. But he got the message.
Six minutes into the semifinal against the All Blacks, Campese executed at speed what Dwyer had demonstrated in slow motion and scored the opening try. Australia went on to win 16-6.
There were pre-match mind games too.
The Aussies unleashed a charm offensive on the Irish public. On the Saturday morning before the Sunday semifinal, my wife Jan and I were in the usual throng of shoppers in Grafton St, Dublin. Over the rise appeared the full Australian team, led by captain Nick Farr-Jones. He stopped briefly to talk. I asked: “What are you guys doing?” He grinned: “Just making sure the Irish fans are barracking for us tomorrow, mate.” They did.
In the following week, before the final against England at Twickenham, Campese became a key figure off the field. Urged on by Dwyer, Campese gave a string of interviews to London papers, saying all week he wasn’t looking forward to playing England, because “all the English do is kick the ball”. It was a brilliant con job. In the final, England tried to run the ball and were hopeless at it. Ironically, Michael Lynagh at first five-eighths for Australia did nothing but kick. Australia won 12-3.
Eight years later, in the 1999 World Cup final with France in Cardiff, another example of astute thinking was provided by Australian captain John Eales.
One of the elements in the play of the reborn French side that beat the All Blacks in the semifinal at Twickenham, was, to be blunt – filth. In the semifinal, Anton Oliver was headbutted in the first ruck, Josh Kronfeld was eye gouged and his testicles were grabbed. Nobody in the All Blacks retaliated, and rookie captain Taine Randell couldn’t get the Scottish referee Jim Fleming to intervene. The same brutal French behaviour marked the start of the final.
Eales, cool and experienced, went to South African referee Andre Watson. “If this continues,” he said. “I will take our team from the field.” The threat (which Australian coach Rod Macqueen later said would never be actually acted on) worked. A game of rugby broke out and Australia won 35-12.
Oddly, considering how much Australians enjoy a usually deserved reputation for a laconic ability to take most things in their stride, some of the less successful Wallaby coaches have failed because they were too emotional.
Think Eddie Jones, a good enough coach to lead Japan to victory over South Africa in pool play at the 2015 World Cup. As the Australian coach in the early 2020s, Jones let himself get embroiled in so many silly off-field scraps with media people that he eventually lost the Australian changing room at the 2023 World Cup.
Michael Cheika? In 2019, in a poky little room under the south stand at Eden Park the media saw how poorly Cheika was dealing with stress. In the aftermath of a 40-12 whipping of the Wallabies by the All Blacks, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Georgina Robinson asked how he planned to deal with the pressure he was under. I was sitting in the row behind her and can vouch for the fact her tone was entirely polite and professional.
It wasn’t how Cheika seemed to have heard it. Eyes blazing, he made it feel very personal and wounding. “If you were naive enough to think that I’m worried about myself here, then you don’t know me at all,” he snapped. “You’ve known me for a while now and the last person I’m thinking about is me. If you think I’m worrying about myself, then you’ve never known me.”
Another Australian journalist tiptoed into a question. Was there a debate in Cheika’s mind over whether he should continue? Cue an angry response that barely made sense. “If you think there’s a debate going on in your mind then you need to take some pills to sort it out because there’s no debate going on in my mind.”
But if Cheika and Jones expressed most of their blue-tongued lizard rage to the media, one of the most academically gifted Australian coaches, Alan Jones, had furious arguments with his own players.
An Oxford University graduate, he had taken the Wallabies on their first grand slam tour of Britain and Ireland in 1984. But Jones was highly strung and brittle, with a penchant for temper tantrums.
By the time he was coaching the Wallabies at the 1987 Rugby World Cup he was a breakfast radio talkback host with the No 1 show in Sydney. He was also a control freak, who ordered all the players in his Cup squad to stop work while the tournament was on. But Jones himself stayed on air. He even called Farr-Jones and dressed him down because the great halfback was still working a few hours a day at a stockbroking firm. One call came at 7.30am from Jones’ studio during a commercial break. Years later, Farr-Jones would say: “I wonder why I didn’t say, ‘Hang on, Alan – where the hell are you calling me from?’”
Kiss, a former league star from Queensland, who is currently coach of the Queensland Reds’ Super Rugby team, appears to be cut from a totally different cloth to Jones and Cheika. He comes to the top job with the Wallabies carrying a reputation as a players’ coach. It may be a small straw in the wind, but several Reds stars, including Wallabies captain Harry Wilson and Fraser McReight, have signed long-term contract extensions to stay with the Reds.
It seems more than a coincidence that Australia played their best football at two World Cups when they were coached by men whose egos were totally under control. In that respect at least, Kiss seems similar to Bob Dwyer and Rod Macqueen.
Phil Gifford is a Contributing Sports Writer for NZME. He is one of the most respected voices in New Zealand sports journalism.