Wallabies’ 2026 schedule brings hope but also potential for bigger headaches | Angus Fontaine
After losing seven of their last eight Tests in 2025 and completing the first winless tour of Europe since 1958, the Wallabies are back home nursing a giant hangover.Unfortunately, the 2026 season unveiled this week looks likely to prolong the pain.Having watched their team end the year in a blur of yellow cards, wobbly lineouts, aerial ineptitude and headless chook footy, fans will be aghast to find only six of Australia’s 14 Tests will be played at home in 2026 – the first three against nations who defeated them only this month.The new year only brings bigger headaches.The worst of them, like all hangovers, is self-inflicted: an awkward handover of national coaching duties between Joe Schmidt and Les Kiss following home Tests against Ireland in Sydney, France in Brisbane and Italy at a still to be confirmed location, and midway through the inaugural north-south face-off, the Nations Championship.
Given Schmidt and Kiss worked as master-protege over six successful years at the helm in Ireland, RA have pitched it to the public as an “orderly transfer” designed to cause “minimal disruption to the Australian Rugby ecosystem”, with Kiss to complete his contract with the Queensland Reds in July before joining the national set-up.After the 48-33 defeat to France last week, Schmidt seemed equally at peace with staying on or walking.“If there’s a sense somebody else can come in and do a better job … I’ll just play golf a bit sooner.” But RA has quashed talk of a quicker transition.“It’s certainly a good plan,” RA boss Phil Waugh says.
“We’ve just got to execute.”That plan gives 60-year-old Kiss just 11 Tests with the squad before the 2027 Rugby World Cup kicks off on home soil.And given the litany of issues within the side – narrow attack, passive defence, misfiring lineout and scrum, and ragged discipline – it’s no wonder Wallabies fans are nursing considerable hangxiety for the year ahead.The last time Rugby Australia attempted this sort of “smash and grab” operation on a World Cup was in 2023 when Dave Rennie was cruelly sacked as Australian coach and Eddie Jones was parachuted in on a five-year deal.We all know how that went – a 10-month shitstorm of two wins in nine Tests and ignominious failure at the World Cup.
Fitting then that Kiss faces a “hair of the dog that bit you” scenario from the get-go, with a two-Test series against Jones’s Japan in August, the first away, the return fixture in Townsville.Kiss has three weeks with the side prior but given Schmidt’s men only squeaked past the Brave Blossoms by 15-19 in October, is it enough?Things don’t get easier for Kiss, with away Tests against the world No 6 Argentina looming next.Schmidt’s first tangle with Los Pumas on home turf in 2024 was a memorable mixed bag, beating the home side 20-19 before conceding the most points in Wallaby history in the return, squandering a 20-3 lead to go down 67-27.By then we should have an idea of who the Kiss Army will be and how they will play.As a league winger for the North Sydney Bears, Kiss was famous for lightning speed and ferocious defence and fans will hope his Wallabies bristle with similar qualities.
Certainly, his crowd-pleasing Reds made fast ball and crash tackling their trademark.Of late the Wallabies have been guilty of the deadliest sin in Australia: being boring.Kiss’s primary mission must be to unlock his big weapons – player of the year centre Len Ikitau, $5m man Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, livewire fullback Tom Wright and wingers Max Jorgensen and Mark Nawaquanitawase (back from NRL in 2027).Those five are among the best players in the world on their day.But without a spark, none can fire.
Kiss must find a playmaker at 10 and a general at nine and do it fast.He may not have to look far with flyhalf Carter Gordon and halfback Tate McDermott under his eyes all year at the Reds.But both need to set Super Rugby ablaze first.Sign up to The BreakdownThe latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewedafter newsletter promotionKiss’s big test as new Wallabies coach is South Africa on 27 September.This one-off shootout will be the centrepiece of Australia’s 2026 season.
In August, Schmidt’s men put the world on notice, fighting back from 0-22 to beat rugby’s No 1 side by 38-22.It’ll be a hard act to follow but beating the Boks at home can trump it.If Kiss can conjure such a feat, the All Blacks will seem beatable, even at home.No Wallabies side has won in New Zealand since John Eales led a 23-15 boilover in 2001.But with the Bledisloe Cup lost ever since, and another two-Test duel in 2026, RA need game two in Sydney to be more than just another pride-salvaging mission.
Their 2026 finishes against England (8 November), Scotland (15 November) and Wales (21 November).After beating England after the siren last November, Schmidt’s men fell meekly to a 25-7 drubbing earlier this month.That loss to the new world No 3 side triggered an ugly late-season collapse in which they then surrendered to Italy, Ireland and France.Instead of finishing a promising season on a high, the Wallabies sank to new lows, notching 10 defeats in a year for the first time in history.It consigns longsuffering fans to a cold sweat summer.
With a new year and new coach there’s fresh hope.But after a hangover like 2025, the dawn of 2026 might yet bring a few fresh hells.
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