Joe Schmidt has opened the door on how the Wallabies' most delicate coaching change in two decades is actually going to work, confirming he is already exchanging messages with Les Kiss "last night and this morning" as he prepares to hand the keys over after a July series against Ireland, France and Italy.
Speaking on Rugby.com.au's Rugby Heaven, Schmidt laid out the shape of the handover that Rugby Australia signed off when Kiss was confirmed as his successor. The July Tests — Ireland in Sydney on 4 July, France in Brisbane on 11 July and Italy at HBF Park on 18 July — will be Schmidt's final three matches in gold.
"I talked to Les Kiss last night. We exchanged messages this morning," Schmidt said. "There's a constant conversation happening between us, particularly around who's playing well, what we're looking for. But in the end, those three Test matches, I will still have the lead in — and that will be Les's opportunity to see."
Rather than paint Kiss's arrival as a clean break, Schmidt described the incoming head coach's role during the winter as a structured look-in rather than a parallel coaching set-up. Kiss had already sat in on Wallabies camps during the 2025 spring tour, Schmidt noted, and will spend the Sydney, Brisbane and Perth weeks absorbing the routines and language he will inherit the second Schmidt steps aside.
"Every team has their own lexicon," Schmidt said. "We have a language that we use. We have expectations that we set. And we have a game model that we play to. And so it will be Les's opportunity. He's already spent quite a bit of time in the Wallabies environment — both when we played at home last year and then on the spring tour. He was in during the England and the Ireland weeks. So Les is already well briefed on how we structure our week and how we try to build toward the game. And then he'll bring his own ingredients into the Japanese Tests that follow."
'More Likely to Shift Direction Than Change Direction'
Schmidt made a point of toning down expectations of any early Kiss revolution. The incoming coach, he suggested, is not going to arrive with a stack of re-written playbooks.
"There's a couple of weeks' hiatus here, so he'll have the opportunity just to take stock and then build his way into those two Tests," Schmidt said. "He's more likely to shift direction than change direction. It's not likely to be big shifts immediately. He'll work his way to any change in how the game's played."
'I Just Don't Think I Was as Effective'
The most telling part of the interview came when the Rugby Heaven panel pushed Schmidt on why he was so firm about stepping away completely, rather than staying on in a consultant role when Kiss takes over for the Japan tour and the end-of-year window. Schmidt drew a direct line back to his own extended farewell from Ireland in 2018 and argued it had taught him not to cling on.
"I'm comfortable with the conversations," Schmidt said of his exit timeline. "I guess for me, I've got some other responsibilities and priorities and how they may dovetail in the future. The one thing I do know is that the first time I retired — I announced that retirement — was in 2018, and I stayed in the seat for another year, and I just don't think I was as effective as I had been prior to that.
"I'm better to get right out of the way," he added. "Let Les really lead that window through to the end of the year. And if Les wants a hand on the back of that — yeah, we coached together, I don't know, over 10 years ago and have been friends since. So it's not like I'd be a million miles away."
The panel made clear Rugby Australia had wanted him to stay in some form — "we're desperate to have you stay with us" — and Schmidt did not slam the door on a future advisory role. He simply refused to promise Kiss an in-house shadow in his first full campaign.
Schmidt's Wallabies, who arrested a torrid run of form across the 2024 and 2025 seasons to post wins over England and Wales on the spring tour, now face the hardest of their three July opponents first. Ireland, fresh off Andy Farrell's 2026 Six Nations campaign, will arrive in Sydney on 4 July looking to remind the Wallabies that a changing of the coaching guard does not hand anyone a head start.
