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Michael Cheika makes sensational Rugby World Cup admission: 'I should have left because that shows they didn't trust me any more'

Michael Cheika

Former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has said he should have quit the job in early 2019 after Rugby Australia (RA) brought in Scott Johnson as director of rugby and introduced a three-man selection panel.

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Cheika stayed in the job until the World Cup in Japan later in the year and quit after the Wallabies were thrashed 40-16 by England in the quarter-finals.

The 53-year-old told Britain’s The Times newspaper on Sunday he should have stood down earlier, because he felt that Rugby Australia’s management had lost confidence in him.

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Three Reds players get sacked.

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Three Reds players get sacked.

“In a footy team there can only be one boss, that’s all there is to it,” Cheika said.

“I should have left because that shows they didn’t trust me any more.”

RA appointed former Scotland head coach Johnson following a review into the Wallabies’ 2018 season when they lost nine of their 13 Test matches and there were suggestions Cheika should be sacked.

The former Waratahs coach added while he did not agree with the decision to appoint Johnson, he had felt he could get the team to perform well enough to clinch their third World Cup title in Japan.

“I loved Australian rugby and I thought I could do it, I believed I could get the players together and I didn’t want to let the players and the supporters down,” Cheika said.

“I tried to manage it the best way I could without being out of order.

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“If you cause turbulence at that point, everyone feels it and I didn’t need everyone to feel the turbulence in the team.

“You have to deal with it internally.”

Cheika ended his tenure as coach after the World Cup saying he had virtually no relationship with then RA chief executive Raelene Castle and chairman Cameron Clyne, who have both since stepped down. Cheika and Castle had an infamous bust up in Tokyo in 2019 and had to be separated.

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
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