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Coleman: Waratahs down but not out after disappointing start
By AAP
A 1-3 start to their Super Rugby campaign has hit the Waratahs' hopes of a top-four finish but coach Darren Coleman says his side can turn their season around.
Coach Darren Coleman remains confident the NSW Waratahs can turn around a Super Rugby Pacific season that started with high expectations but has so far brought only one win from four games.
Friday's 34-17 loss to the Hurricanes came after another error-prone performance from the Wallabies-laden Waratahs, whose much-vaunted attack has so far failed to fire consistently in the campaign.
In his first season in charge, Coleman transformed the Waratahs from a hapless outfit that went winless in 2021 to finals contenders, but his target of a top-four finish this year now looks like a big ask.
"We are not talking top four at the moment. It looks too far in the distance," he told reporters in Wellington.
"If we can scramble a win over the next two weeks - the Chiefs at home or the next week against the Brumbies - we've got a pretty favourable run home.
"Five of our final eight are at home. We're still in it, but we've got to dig our way out of this form slump we're in at the moment and get some belief and confidence back."
The problem for Coleman is that the Waikato Chiefs and ACT Brumbies were the only unbeaten sides after the first three rounds of the competition, with the latter having beaten the Waratahs in their season opener.
Coleman conceded he had probably underestimated the difficulty of their opening four matches with only one at home, and he was clearly looking forward to getting back to the Sydney Football Stadium for the Chiefs match next Friday.
"We don't want to be going into the bye 1-5, there's no doubt about that," he said.
"But that's my job, to get us back up to go again next week. By no means is the season over, by any stretch."
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Latest Comments
Special player. The full set.
Go to comments“He won a ECL and a domestic treble at the beginning of his career.”
He won 2 ECLs at the beginning of his career (2009, 2011). Since then he’s won 1 in 15 years.
“He then won 3 leagues on the bounce later in his career”
He won 3 leagues on the bounce at the start of his career too - (2009, 2010, 2011).
If we’re judging him by champions league wins, he peaked in his late 30s, early 40s. If we’re judging him by domestic titles he’s stayed pretty consistent over his career. If we’re judging him by overall win rate he peaked at Bayern, and was better at Barcelona than at City. So no, he hasn’t gotten better by every measure.
“You mentioned coaches were older around the mid-2010’s compared to the mid-2000’s. Robson was well above the average age you’ve given for those periods even in the 90’s when in his pomp.”
Robson was 63-64 when he was at Barcelona, so he wasn’t very old. But yeah, he was slightly above the average age of 60 I gave for the top 4 premier league coaches in 2015, and quite a bit above the averages for 2005 and 2025.
“Also, comparing coaches - and their experiences, achievements - at different ages is unstable. It’s not a valid way to compare and tends to torpedo your own logic when you do compare them on equal terms. I can see why you don’t like doing it.”
Well my logic certainly hasn’t been torpedoed. Currently the most successful premier league coaches right now are younger than they were ten years ago. You can throw all the nuance at it that you want, but that fact won’t change. It’s not even clear what comparing managers “on equal terms” would even mean, or why it would be relevant to anything I’ve said.
“You still haven’t answered why Kiss could be a risker appointment?”
Because I’ve been talking to you about football managers. If you want to change the subject then great - I care a lot more about rugby than I do football.
But wrt Kiss, I don’t agree that 25 years experience is actually that useful, given what a different sport rugby was 25 years ago. Obviously in theory more experience can never be a bad thing, but I think 10 years of coaching experience is actually more than enough these days. Erasmus had been a coach for 13 years when he got the SA top job. Andy Farrell had been a coach for 9 when he got the Ireland job. I don’t think anyone would say that either of them were lacking in experience.
Now - what about coaches who do have 25+ years experience? The clearest example of that would be Eddie Jones, who started coaching 31 years ago. He did pretty well everywhere he worked until around 2021 (when he was 61), when results with England hit a sharp decline. He similarly oversaw a terrible run with Australia, and currently isn’t doing a great job with Japan.
Another example is Warren Gatland, who also started coaching full-time 31 years ago, after 5 years as a player-coach. Gatland did pretty well everywhere he went until 2020 (when he was 56), when he did a relatively poor job with the Chiefs, before doing a pretty poor job with the Lions, and then overseeing a genuine disaster with Wales. There are very few other examples, as most coaches retire or step back into lesser roles when they enter their 60s. Mick Byrne actually has 34 years experience in coaching (but only 23 years coaching in rugby) and at 66 he’s the oldest coach of a top 10 side, and he’s actually doing really well. He goes to show that you can continue to be a good coach well into your 60s, but he seems like an outlier.
So the point is - right now, Les Kiss looks like a pretty reliable option, but 5 years ago so did Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland before they went on to prove that coaches often decline as they get older. If Australia want Kiss as a short term appointment to take over after Schmidt leaves in the summer, I don’t think that would be a terrible idea - but NB wanted Kiss as a long term appointment starting in 2027! That’s a massive risk, given the chance that his aptitude will begin to decline.
Its kind of analagous to how players decline. We know (for example) that a fly-half can still be world class at 38, but we also know that most fly-halves peak in their mid-to-late 20s, so it is generally considered a risk to build your game plan around someone much older than that.
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