About Schmidt: Facing the challenge of the Lions

Sydney Morning Herald

4 hours ago

For a few precious minutes, and with a frenzy of organised chaos swirling around him, Joe Schmidt sits down and sits still.
The scene is the bowels of a cavernous studio building in Eveleigh, where a freshly-gathered Wallabies squad are busy trying on Test jerseys, white dress shirts and suit pants, picking through boxes of shoes and boots, posing for headshots and filming 'content' for a variety of hungry stakeholders.
There are only a few hours allocated before the whole circus must move on to training, so there are complex spreadsheets of players' names, duties and locations taped up on concrete pylons. Massive bodies hustle between stations like a Tokyo pedestrian crossing.
For a self-confessed planning obsessive, it's hard to know if Schmidt is in his happy place, or mildly terrified. Or a bit of both.
Every day of the next five weeks will feel a little like this for Schmidt and the Wallabies, as the much-anticipated British and Irish Lions tour hurtles around the country. Though the lead-in time is longer than any in modern sport, with tours to Australia only held every 12 years, once the show is underway, preparation timelines are measured in minutes.
One of Schmidt's stations on the pylon sheet is an interview to spruik ResMed, who are the official 'sleep sponsor' of the Lions tour. Schmidt laughs at the irony: he barely gets any sleep.
'I need some sleep advice alright - it wouldn't be something that is a strength of mine,' Schmidt says.
'But I certainly feel like I have plenty of energy anyway with what's coming up, and the good group of men that we have.'
In truth, Schmidt has been preparing at this pace for weeks, and at a similarly frantic tempo since he took on the Wallabies job in January last year. With the Wallabies, and Australian rugby, at one of their lowest ebbs in the wake of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, Schmidt signed up and began planning backwards from August 2, 2025.
That's the date of the Wallabies' third Test against the British and Irish Lions in Sydney. And it was, initially, the end of his contract, though that would be pushed back several times.
It was a mammoth job with a perilously short runway, so it was assumed some of Schmidt's motivation was the rare chance to coach against the British and Irish Lions. One of the final boxes to tick on a distinguished coaching CV.
Not so, says the 59-year-old Kiwi.
'It was seriously just the opportunity to try to elevate the footprint of the Wallabies,' Schmidt says.
'Having coached against the Wallabies a number of times, both with the Irish and the All Blacks, the Wallabies is a massive brand in the international game and it was probably tarnished a little bit in the performances at the World Cup, so it was just to try to help.
'I don't have a magic formula or anything, I'm very ordinary, but I work hard and when (RA high performance boss) Peter Horne asked me if I'd try to help, I just felt that the Lions, because it's such a big occasion, it really gives us an opportunity to become a little bit more visible here in Australia.'
Schmidt senses progress on that front. Where once only Irish people in 'County Coogee' would stop him in the street, now people with broad Aussie accents are keen to yarn about the rise of the Wallabies over the past year, and their chances against the Lions. That energises him, too.
Unlike many in the game, Schmidt never really dreamed about being part of a Lions series.
It was not on a coaching bucket list, and while he often spoke with Lions coaches when coaching Ireland about players and endorsed their cases for selection, Schmidt never took up approaches to be involved with the Lions set-up.
'It was never something that I'd aspired to be involved in, but they always excited me,' Schmidt said.
'The one thing I do remember as a kid, I must have been really young, but there was a Lions test, I think it was the fourth Test in 1971, and the All Blacks had to win it to draw the series.
'The Lions had legends like JPR Williams, Barry John and Carwyn James, and the All Blacks had Colin Meads and Brian Lochore, Sid Going - these guys I grew up admiring. I just remember a dog ran on the field and a guy tripped over it. That's what you remember when you're a kid, I suppose.'
But fast-forward 54 years and, somehow, Schmidt has found himself about to lead Australia into battle with the famous Lions touring side.
Since taking on the Wallabies job last year, Schmidt has been happy to admit it's all a bit daunting. The very best of four nations against a team who missed the Rugby World Cup finals. At no.8 in the world, the current Wallabies are the lowest-ranked host nation of a Lions tour in the professional era - by some distance. Five of the previous seven hosts were reigning world champions.
But there is also level of familiarity about the Lions that has helped Schmidt eventually get off to sleep.
The Lions coach is Andy Farrell, who was Schmidt's defence coach at Ireland, and there are multiple assistants and Lions players who were once part of his Dublin life, too. The Lions' patterns of play will likely have some of his fingerprints on them.
Schmidt and Farrell are good mates and have even made a pact, of sorts, to try and keep the upcoming series on friendly terms, too. Schmidt cites the toxicity of the Lions' last tours of South Africa and New Zealand, which became soured by feuds about refereeing criticism and off-field controversies.
Then-Lions coach Warren Gatland said last year: 'In South Africa (in 2021), it was almost a win at all costs, the ends justifies the means. It didn't feel like it was about rugby. It was almost like things off the field were trying to upset players or the team, and it was deemed acceptable.'
Schmidt says: 'I would know a lot of these players coming over, and would have massive respect for the people they are, as well as the players they are. And I think my ideal around this was, having been at the 2017 games and seeing how edgy it was, and then the Springbok tour last time, where it probably didn't do a massive amount for promoting the game in a really positive light.
'It would be great for this tour to be talked about in terms of being a celebration of rugby. And I know that 'Faz' (Farrell) is of the same mind, and so hopefully it can be a really positive celebration of rugby.
'Because for us, it's a massive window. We don't get another window like that. Even the World Cup is fractured in that there's a lot of focus on other teams as well. When you become the sole focus, I think we've got to try to make it as positive as we can.'
The Lions tour was less than a day old this week, however, when the coaches' ambition for off-field positivity took a shot to the ribs, via Lions chief executive Ben Calveley issuing an unnecessarily punchy reminder to Schmidt and RA that the tour agreement requires them to release Wallabies to state sides.
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As a genuine point of tension, it was more molehill than mountain. But Schmidt's robust retort to Calveley's comments - when raised minutes later in this same interview - indicated a positivity push doesn't mean being a pushover.
Among Australian media, Schmidt is jokingly referred to as 'Genial Joe', and the nickname shocked some who knew the Kiwi coach in Ireland, when he was notoriously - even punishingly - intense and calculated. They don't quite know what to make the new smiling version.
Former Brumbies coach David Nucifora, who worked closely with Schmidt as the IRFU's head of high performance, is now on the Lions staff as general manager. He said in a recent interview he would be poring over every word Schmidt utters over the next month.
'There's an enormous amount of respect for Joe,' Nucifora says. 'We all understand he's a very sharp mind, a deep thinker about the game. Sometimes, if you think too deeply, you'll confuse yourself. So hopefully he gets confused overthinking things.
'I enjoy listening to interviews to try to get a feel for what's he saying, what's he thinking. Is he giving anything away here? So I would keep a close eye on that sort of stuff as well. You try to read into it.
'I'm sure that lots of mind games will go on around ... it's a bit of a mental spar.'
Nucifora's comments came after Schmidt had stirred up headlines in the UK by describing the Lions' centre partnership for their clash against Argentina - Bundee Aki and Sione Tuipulotu - as 'southern hemisphere centre partnership'. Intended or not, the phrase struck a raw nerve, after criticism in the UK about Farrell picking eight Lions who were raised in Australia, New Zealand or South Africa.
Schmidt insists it was not deliberate.
'Bundee is one of the players I've so enjoyed coaching, and I'd have so much respect for that fella, that wasn't supposed to be a swipe or a jibe at all,' he said.
'In fact, it was sloppy from me because someone had just been talking to me and described it as that, and then I used their words, and I should have just stuck to my own words and said, 'hey, there's a lot of respect in Australia for Sione'.'
But seriously now, Joe - are you a clandestine pot-stirrer? Are you one of those coaches who artfully strategises their public comments?
'No,' Schmidt says. 'It's easy to get distracted by things that aren't going to contribute to a better performance. I am putting my energy into a player's individual progress, or getting the team to better understand an aspect of our play or that sort of thing, because in the end, that's all I can affect. I'm a big believer in the values of the game, so is Faz.
'I've never seen Faz stirring the pot. His energy goes into the team, not into stirring the pot.
'I know what you're talking about. There are coaches who certainly do it, and they even talk to their team through the media sometimes. But if I've got something to say to a player, I'd rather say it to them, than fire a barrel through the media. I know that a lift-out quote or a phrase can be a headline and inevitably, even after 20-plus years of doing this job, I'll get it wrong.
'If I've got something to say to a player, I'd rather say it to them, than fire a barrel through the media.'
Joe Schmidt
'I'm conscious of it and I'm conscious that other coaches do it, but I don't anticipate it happening in this Lions tour. 'Faz' and I have had a few conversations about how we'd like the narrative of the tour to be a celebration of rugby. I think for Australian rugby, we need that.'
And with that Schmidt is whisked away. There are more photos to take and meetings to meet, and only so many minutes left in the day. There's a Lions series to be won.
But despite the plans for good vibe city, the reality is only one team - and one group of fans - will be celebrating on August 2.
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Years of work have already gone into being in the dressing room where you get to pop champagne corks.
It's a Lions tour, after all. What sort of wild drama may unfold over the next five weeks, well, that's hard to plan for.