Fresh from making history with his Chicago Hounds team in the United States, Chris Latham has declared an ambition to coach the Wallabies.
The Australia legend led Chicago to the Major League Rugby Championship without losing a game – Hounds’ 12-0 record making them the first team ever to post an unbeaten MLR season.
Joe Schmidt steps down as Wallaby head coach after July’s three Nations Championship rounds and Les Kiss will take charge on a two-year contract.
Latham, 50, confirmed he did not throw his hat in the ring for the job this time round but told Planet Rugby: “I’d like to do it in future.”
Confident
The 1999 World Cup winner would be a popular choice, after a dashing 78-cap career in which he scored 40 tries – a number bettered only by David Campese.
“From a Super Rugby point of view I think – well, I know – I’d be very capable,” added Latham, who has a contract with Chicago until the end of the 2027 MLR season. “I know I’d do a very good job.
“I’d also love to get into the [English] Premiership. I loved my time at Worcester. Having that experience of going to the Prem would be awesome.”
Latham is a fiercely proud Aussie, as is clear from his reaction to the canning of this year’s Rugby Championship in order that New Zealand and South Africa can go it alone and stage their own four-Test series, billed as ‘Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry’.
“It’s very, very disappointing,” he says. “New Zealand’s at its strongest when Australia’s at its strongest and Australia’s at its strongest when New Zealand’s at its strongest. That’s been the case for as long as I can remember, before I even started playing.
“Every country has its rival, its nemesis, a team they go toe-to-toe with that pushes the boundaries of where they can get to. For us and for New Zealand that’s each other.
“Now, you can sit there and argue from a New Zealand point of view and a South African point of view that they see it in their own one [rivalry].
“But when you put tradition into it, when you put the values of what rugby is about, when you put the cost of what it is to travel, to put games on and things like that, you’ve got to be smart.
“At the end of the day, decisions are made from a monetary point of view. But us and New Zealand are the closest neighbours each has got, so it’s sad.”
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Add the fact that another Super Rugby campaign has come and gone without an Australian team winning a play-off game in New Zealand and Latham concedes: “It’s definitely worrying [a year out from the World Cup].”
Australia, who have slipped to eighth in the World Rankings, open their Nations Championship campaign against Ireland in Sydney on Saturday before taking on France and Italy.
They then play a home and away series against Japan before flying to Argentina for two Tests against the other country left high and dry without a Rugby Championship to play.
Not until the last Sunday in September do the Wallabies get a game with the world champion Springboks. They have to wait until October for a shot at the All Blacks.
Antoine Dupont to miss Nations Championship after late withdrawal from Fabien Galthié’s squad
“You want to be playing the best,” Latham adds. “You want to be putting yourself under the maximum amount of pressure leading into World Cups, or any Test matches.
“You want to be firing in your domestic season. You want your best players playing their best rugby. And to do that you’ve got to be playing top quality rugby.
“It’s not just playing the pool rounds of Super Rugby. Your best rugby is your finals. That’s where the pressure is. That’s where things are at stake and that’s where you learn and grow the most.
“So, yeah, it is concerning. It’s a big job for the coaching staff of the Wallabies.”
One day that might be Latham’s professional concern but for now it is Chicago, a team which achieved bonus point wins in every game they played, culminating in a 35-17 defeat of California Legion in last week’s final.
In only his second season in charge he built a team culture around ‘The Chicago Outfit’, Al Capone’s infamous crime syndicate that controlled the Windy City in the 1920s.
Chicago way
Capone’s mob were “ruthless, organised, fiercely loyal to each other operating as one coordinated unit with a common purpose”, explains Marc Stcherbina, the former Northampton and Australia A star turned commentator, who had a front row seat throughout Hounds’ season.
“Latham didn’t just mention the theme in a pre-season meeting and move on. The players were immersed in it from the moment they arrived.”
Latham confirmed: “We had a saying this year – play the Chicago way. We based it around what it is to be a Chicagoan.
“That is tough and bold with big shoulders: digging in when it’s tough. I love this city, I really do.
“It’s a hard city but, jeez, it’s good.”
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