Rugby Australia boss apologises for the state of the Wallabies

Feeling the despair of fans, Phil Waugh has apologised for the Wallabies’ dismal 2023 campaign while promising to drag Australia’s ailing football code out of the doldrums.

Rugby Australia’s CEO since only June, Waugh concedes the Wallabies’ failure to progress out of the group stages for the first time in World Cup history is unacceptable for all stakeholders in the game.

“The performances of the Wallabies – and that’s our shopfront window – haven’t been good enough,” he said after confirming Eddie Jones’s shambolic 10-month reign was over.

“So for all supporters, we feel the pain. We feel that responsibility, we feel like we’ve let them down.

“I apologise and I’ve done that a number of times, just around the performance because it has been bitterly disappointing.

“Now we need to move forward, with the same direction, the same vision and the same passion.

“We’ve got a lot of ground to make up, with building trust with our stakeholders, with the community.”

And moving forward doesn’t mean rushing into appointing Jones’s replacement.

“Look, it’s all very raw. I think everyone’s a candidate,” Waugh said after the likes of outgoing All Blacks coach Ian Foster, ex-Wallabies boss Michael Cheika and former Australian assistants Stephen Larkham and Dan McKellar’s names were thrown up.

“We’re open to getting the best coach for our system and our team in terms of high quality.

“We want to make sure that we get the right panel together. Once we get that panel together, then run a process. Our next Test is not till July next year.

“So we have time.”

While acknowledging RA remains in a challenging financial position, which is why Jones opted to jump ship, Waugh said hosting the British and Irish Lions in 2025, the men’s World Cup in 2027 and the women’s global showpiece in 2029 would leave the governing body strong again.

“There are a lot of good things occurring,” said the retired great.

“We won the World Cup hosting rights for ’27 and ’29, the Wallaroos beat France, a top-three team, for the first time ever on Saturday night, the sevens teams continue to succeed.

“There’s a lot of great activity in the community games. So rugby is healthy.

“(But) we need to be winning between World Cups and not rely purely on World Cup success.”

Despite the Wallabies slumping to an all-time low of No.10 in the rankings after beating only minnows Georgia and Portugal in a woeful two-from-nine Test record under Jones this year, Waugh is confident a turnaround is imminent.

“We saw the performance in Dunedin against the All Blacks for 65 minutes where we were in front,” he said of Australia’s 23-20 loss to New Zealand three weeks before the World Cup.

“The All Blacks pushed the Springboks and potentially could have won the World Cup final.

“So my view on all these aspects is you’re never as far away as you feel like you might be and you’re never as far ahead as you feel like you might be when you’re winning.

“So in terms of having no direction, I’d strongly dispute that because I do think we’ve got a very strong direction, a very strong vision.”

It is unclear if Jones will receive any pay-out.

“We’ve got a deed of release with Eddie and the reason why we have taken some time to get to our announcement out is because we were working through that deed of release,” Waugh said.

“I think I’ve been fairly transparent around the fact that Rugby Australia has ended up in a very good situation financially through the separation.”