Joe Schmidt brings Laurie Fisher back into Wallabies camp as assistant
Wallabies' coach Joe Schmidt has made the first key appointment in his support team, offering another chance to Laurie Fisher, one of the men ditched in the calamitous Eddie Jones era.
The 65-year-old Fisher has been brought back on board as one of New Zealander Schmidt's assistants, bringing with him two decades of professional coaching experience and an unmistakably distinctive white-bearded presence.
It will be Fisher's second stint with the national side, having previously been an assistant to Dave Rennie but then sacked when Jones came on board for his disruptive and unsuccessful reign.
The Canberran, known in the sport as "Lord", is a former Australia U21s head coach, having also spent time in different coaching capacities with the ACT Brumbies, Irish province Munster and English club Gloucester in England.
Fisher, who spent 18 years in total with the Brumbies, will join up with the Wallabies in April.
He's known Schmidt for a long time, with the pair having coached against each other in provincial rugby when they were in Ireland a decade ago.
"It's a genuine privilege to get another opportunity to work with the Wallabies," said Fisher.
"I'm really excited to work alongside Joe and the team he puts together, which I know will be of the highest quality.
"There's no doubt there's a lot to do and I'm looking forward to doing my bit to contribute to the growth of the team and resurgence of Australian Rugby."
Schmidt has also linked up with former Ireland and Melbourne Rebels analyst Eoin Toolan, who will join the Australia camp as head of analysis and skills coach.
"Laurie brings a wealth of experience to the role and is highly respected around the rugby world," said Schmidt, 58.
"Having worked with Eoin in Ireland, I know he will bring a strong attention to detail and be a very positive addition to the staff and wider team."
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Don’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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