Bernard Foley and Nick Phipps were paraded at the Waratahs' Daceyville base on Thursday as 2027 Super Rugby signings, and within minutes both men had turned the press conference into a plea: hurry up and name a coach.
NSW have been without one since parting ways with Dan McKellar, who missed the finals in each of his two seasons. Michael Cheika — the man who delivered the Waratahs' only Super Rugby title in 2014, with Foley and Phipps in the side — is understood to be the preferred candidate, with Rugby Australia also exploring pairing him with Stephen Hoiles, who guided the California Legion to a Major League Rugby grand final.
Phipps, now 37, was careful not to campaign publicly for his old boss.
"It's hard to get a hold of the great man," Phipps told reporters. "I do know there's been lots of really quality candidates who put their name forward. Like it or not, the Waratahs is probably one of the jewels in the crown of the competition."
He was blunter about the cost of the delay to the current playing group.
"It'll be good for the guys in there training this week to know who the coach will be, and there's a little bit of uncertainty about how it's all going," Phipps said. "It'd be good to put that to bed early and then let them start to impress coaches and get ready for the next season."
Foley, who last played for the Wallabies in November 2022 and has spent recent seasons in Japan, framed the vacancy as an information vacuum.
"I think the more ambiguity and the longer it goes, you have to fill the void; otherwise it gets filled by everyone else's noise and distractions," Foley said. "You'd love to see the decision happen as soon as possible."
The Waratahs have not reached a semi-final since Foley and Phipps left Sydney in 2019. Watching that decline from overseas, Foley told the Sydney Morning Herald, was not easy.
"It's been hard to watch from overseas because of the turnover of coaches," he said. "It's been hard for the players, and the environment has changed so much. So, hopefully trying to come back and bring a bit of stability."
Asked what the next appointment needs to look like, Foley described a temperament rather than a name.
"A guy who's going to drive a good standard, but also empower the players to really be themselves to bring their flair each and every day, on and off the field," Foley said. "We want this to be a place where everyone wants to come to work."
The cost of the drift is already measurable. Junior Wallabies centre Zach Fittler — son of rugby league great Brad — has signed a one-year deal with Top 14 club Pau after NSW, without a head coach, never put a formal offer in front of him.
"Without a head coach there's not much of a huge say in players and stuff," Fittler, 20, told nine.com.au. "They didn't know what the head coach was looking like, and they couldn't offer anything at the moment, which is totally fine. The Waratahs are a fantastic club and, certainly, I would look to return back in a year or so's time, whenever's right."
Fittler impressed at the Junior World Championship in Georgia in June and July, producing a game-high five tackle busts and 88 post-contact metres against Argentina. He joins a Pau backline stacked with the France players who carved up the Wallabies 42-26 at Suncorp Stadium in July — Fabien Brau-Boirie, Theo Attissogbe and Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang — alongside ex-Wallaby Jack Maddocks and Argentina's Julian Montoya and Facundo Isa.
"He's a great guy, great player," Fittler said of Maddocks, whom he spoke to before signing. "He's absolutely loved it and all the Aussie boys there are loving it."
Fellow Junior Wallaby Leo Jaques has gone the other way entirely, switching codes to the Cronulla Sharks.
Foley, meanwhile, is not treating the move as a retirement lap. He has been watching Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, who starts for the Wallabies in Japan on Saturday, and thinks his job is to get the ball to him.
"I'd just love to free him up," Foley said. "He could be interchangeable — I'd probably persist with him at 13. But I also don't think that if you've got 13 you always have to be in that position."
A home World Cup in 2027 is on his mind too, if quietly.
"I'd be lying if I said it's not on the radar. A couple of months ago I was retiring and looking at that, so there's a lot of work to be done," Foley said. "If I can get the body right and get myself into a good position and have a good Super season, then I might consider it."
