The experienced coach has been left ‘disappointed’ and ‘disillusioned’ as he claims he was left in the dark over a top job
12:56, 11 May 2025Updated 13:29, 11 May 2025
Lancaster has hit out over his treatment by Rugby Australia(Image: David Rogers/Getty Images)
Wales-linked Stuart Lancaster has hit out at Rugby Australia following his unsuccessful bid to succeed Joe Schmidt as head coach of the Wallabies.
The 55-year-old was on the shortlist for the role after being sacked by Racing 92 earlier this year and Schmidt announced he would be stepping down following this year’s Rugby Championship. However, with Schmidt later agreeing to stay on until next summer, it was announced at the end of April that Queensland Reds boss Les Kiss will succeed him as Australia’s new head coach.
After waiting on news for three months following an approach from Australian rugby bosses, Lancaster – who also remains very much in the running for the vacant Wales head coach role – has revealed that he only learnt he would not be getting the job shortly before Kiss’ appointment was confirmed.
As a result, the former England coach revealed on his Leaders on Leaders podcast that he had been left “disappointed” and “disillusioned” by his experiences so far this year.
“Australia rang and I definitely felt they said very strongly. ‘Listen, Joe is going to finish after Rugby Championship, we need someone to come in and help us lead into the 2027 World Cup’,” he recalled.
“I felt certainly burnt out [following his Racing 92 exit] but when the call came I was, ‘This is an exciting challenge, a chance to go to a different country’. I had the feeling this is something I can commit to.”
However, while he remained enthusiastic about the role, Lancaster claims he was largely left in the dark over the following three months as he was forced to put his own life on hold, only to learn via a phone call that he wouldn’t be getting the job around two weeks ago.
Hitting out at Rugby Australia over the way he was treated, the coach said the union had a “responsibility to be honest and transparent and consistent with [their] communication”, with the role a “life-changing” matter for those on the shortlist.
“[RA’s approach] was the start of February and when I finally realised I wasn’t going to go to Australia was last week (late April), so we are talking nearly three months,” he continued.
“I don’t mind if [things] are changing, I get the fact that in a complex recruitment process, there might be a different dynamic at play, they are interviewing different coaches or they are thinking we are going to go down this route and not that route. Whatever. I don’t mind. Just tell me. Don’t not say anything.
“Everyone is grown up here. I just need to know what is going on and to not have that the more and more it went on, the more disappointed I became. In the end, last week I got a phone call to say actually Joe is going to stay on now until 2026 and there is no job at all. I was like, ‘Ah’.
“So for the last three months I was sat waiting thinking am I potentially going to live in Sydney and how would it work, this is my vision for the role and I’m getting excited about it to the point where you are thinking ‘I am not sure this is not going to happen’ and then to find out it is definitely not going to happen,” Lancaster added.
“The feedback I gave was one of the rules of leadership, that bad news should never come as a shock so if you had known this was potentially going to happen, you should have let me know so at least then I could have moved on and there are other opportunities out there so why wait.”
The former England boss admitted the disillusionment he already felt from being let go by Racing had “definitely not been helped” by the process he went through with Rugby Australia, and he is still “working through that”.
But while he has questioned whether he wants to go back into the “crazy world of sport” in another coaching role and put himself and his family under more pressure, Lancaster says he is also not necessarily throwing the towel in with a number of “club and international jobs” in the northern hemisphere on his radar.
However, wherever he ends up next, he says, will “go down to fit”.
“I wouldn’t say no if I had to go back to France. I probably wouldn’t go back as a No1, I’d go under a French No1 probably. I can definitely go back in an organisation that was motivated and can see potential. I don’t think with the next job but I wouldn’t say no to that,” said Lancaster.
“The southern hemisphere is always an attraction, but the Australia thing isn’t going to happen. New Zealand tend not to appoint coaches from outside New Zealand. There might be one or two chances to build relationships in South Africa, which I would be keen to explore.
“And obviously the northern hemisphere, there is club and international jobs coming up, but again it goes down to fit, they have got to want you and you have got to want to go.”