Italy sits above Australia in world rugby, with the Wallabies wallowing in ninth, until of course Eddie Jones moves Japan into the top four.

Aussies have gone abroad and lit leading Northern teams afire (Pete Samu and Angus Scott-Young come to mind) or become Test stars for France (Ipswich Grammar old boy Manny Meafou mullered Maro Itoje in Le Crunch), Italy (Victorian-born Monty Ioane), Ireland (Canberran Mack Hansen), Scotland (Jack Dempsey, with 53 carries and 66 tackles in the Six Nations); all gone not for just one reason (Manny perceived as unfit, offers which could not be refused, someone just a bit better in the jersey) and sometimes insatiable desires exhaust finite resources.

Then again, two or three million green and gold quid can drain into the Seine without sound or fury, too.

Standing soberly, somewhat silently, Joe Schmidt surveys the wreckage of (depending on who you talk to) two, ten, 20 or more years of Australian rugby malpractice.

Infamously I wrote days before Rugby Australia, ramrodded by Hamish McLennan and acolytes, retreaded Eddie Jones who had been found wanting by England that hiring him as headman would be the ‘worst decision’ because:

“As he grows into the role, pet projects will eclipse methodology, assistants will run for the exits, some players will be vaccinated from selection and others will be immune from the drop, the press will be either domesticated or ostracised, and interminable excuses will grow like beets in the Lockyer Valley – ‘We’re building for 2027, mate’.”

Now Schmidt must actually build for 2027, welcoming ruck arrival expert Lord Laurie Fisher, a modest demeanor towards the media, and a culture which will be founded almost wholly on no excuses.

The Schmidt selection will not be the worst decision Rugby Australia makes in 2024. As I wrote recently:

“The Wallabies have been stymied by seven cardinal rugby sins for a decade or more. A high penalty and card count, poor referee relations, a shapeless attack, poor ball retention, overreliance on a few stars, a tendency to play to the level of the opposition (tight losses to top teams, narrow wins versus weaker team), and a disconnect from fans and their proxies in the media.

“Joe Schmidt is tailor made to address the first six issues, and if he can restore Australia’s national team to the top three or four in the world, make the Lions tour a thriller, and go deep at a home World Cup, Joe Q. Public and the pressroom will reconnect, because winning answers a hundred questions. Schmidt builds structure, installs ironclad discipline, and loves to bring order to chaos.”

Now we can turn to how that might go: what might the long-suffering Aussie fan see in the Tests versus Wales, Georgia, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, England, Scotland, and Ireland this year, the Lions next year, and build towards a home World Cup in which the Wallabies will help a bigger swath of their country fall in love with rugby again.

There are four open questions. These queries cannot be answered until this season closes, but best guesses are as below.

1. How much will Joe adapt to the Australian environment? (Or, will the Schmidt Doctrine work here?)

Joe will bring his way, come hell or high water. He will be quieter, more dogged and patient. But he still believes he knows the right way for a Test side to become a top side.

Kiwis will debate forever the extent Joe saved Ian Foster’s hide from Pretoria in 2022 to Paris in 2023, but it is clear that even with a less-than-great All Black side and a horror beginning to the World Cup, Joe was an integral part of the brain trust which brought a limited outfit to within one kick of glory.

He will not have gotten his own way in Camp All Black on everything, or even most things, and will want to show the world during the coming Bledisloe Cup games and Lions series what those missing pieces were; for example, he is famously sceptical of the habit of looking for offloads.

2. Who does he need to pick to teach his way, or can it be taught to any willing player with core skills?

Joe will reward hard workers over volatile talent, accuracy in the most-whistled places of rugby (scrum, line speed timing, tackle, cleanout, and kick chase), and believe he can make a modestly talented Hansen or ‘journeyman’ Tadgh Beirne into a world class player more than work for ages with an inconsistent or in-and-out star who will not hear him.

This could be good news for a Ned Hanigan, Andrew Kellaway, Ryan Lonergan, Jed Holloway, or Len Ikitau, even if the quick ruck Reds go on to be the dominant Aussie side, albeit 2023-unfashionable Reds Liam Wright, Seru Uru, Harry Wilson, Ryan Smith, Matt Faessler, and Josh Flook might work their way into a 50-man squad purely on work ethic and teachability.

Virtuoso talent such as possessed by League crossovers or mercurial playmakers: not so Joe.

3. What role does club winning and cohesion play in his selection and curated game plans?

Joe will not subscribe to simple theories. World Cup finalists All Blacks’ prop salvation was not Crusader-born, their loosies span the two islands, not all the Barrett brothers win much at Super Rugby Pacific, and New Zealand teams do not all play the same.

South Africa won back-to-back World Cups with players spread far and wide; a kicker dropped by Montpellier and pulled in at knockout stage, Willie le Roux, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Damian de Allende and Faf de Klerk based in Japan, a Shark-infested pack with very little club success, and an Munster patient named RG.

England has a plan now, but the players come from Bath and Sale and Northampton and Leicester; not just Saracens and Harlequins. Joe will not downgrade a Schmidt-type player for his local club’s woes. Many a ten and 12 can look amazing behind a winning pack (Leinster) but there is a reason Ireland has a Munster-Connacht axis; a win-loss record is fine as a factor, but Test rugby has no easy gainline, nor simple defensive reads for a flyhalf.

Angus Bell is Australia’s best young loosehead no matter where the Waratahs end up on the ladder, just as Scott Barrett’s stock will not fall in lockstep with the Crusaders’ descent. Being a great player on a struggling team (Aaron Smith on the Highlanders during many years) can be the best Test CV.

4. Why will fringe players stay home instead of go abroad for more money and opportunity to grow?

Joe will lose more sleep over the question of talent flight than any other: retention is the best selection tool of all. A proper Wallaby squad will have a wider group of 50 players (three deep and four at two, lock, nine and ten), all briefed and ready, adhering to Joe’s strict standards.

A few dozen of the group will not be starting but Joe will need them to either remain in Super Rugby Pacific or be in a setup (for example, Dan McKellar’s Leicester Tigers or Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle) where the type of rugby and data shared is reliably Test-conducive. With the Rebels reeling and the most marketable stars forced to made hedge plans, Joe and his employer may be forced to rethink. More pro rugby Aussies ply their trade abroad now than in 2015, when the first tweak was made.

How will this look in practice? How will Joe redeem the seven Aussie rugby sins?

A. Get the penalty and card count down.

Joe is a disciplinarian but being scolded by a principal or prefect in practice is not how young men learn to make refs happy. The key is accurate power, precise force, aimed aggression.

Look at the relics of what Joe taught Ireland: cleanouts by big men like Caelan Doris, Tadgh Furlong and Tadgh Beirne are legal, low and brutal. They hold nothing back and often take the arriving defender two or three metres beyond the ruck, something today’s refs tolerate.

No matter what card games are played (yellow, red, bunker, twenty, report, shades of gray) in Super Rugby Pacific, Joe will drop players who go high in the tackle, are known as illegal scrummagers, are unfit, or refuse to learn the one-two-three count in their heads on arrival to ruck.

Can 34-year old James Slipper still hold his bind against the big boys? Is Taniela Tupou off to Ireland, and if not, can he fix referee views of his technique? Beyond Bell, the rest of the props (with Allan Ala’alatoa on the mend) have less than twenty caps; it takes about thirty each to know the trade. Joe will ensure he picks a couple for a dozen Tests before the Lions arrive.

There is not a larger issue to shore up than the set piece even if the Wallabies World Cup numbers were good at scrum and lineout.

Part of how Joe wants his teams to avoid giving opponents easy points off the tee or (worse) easy exits via scrum penalties in midfield (kick to corner without having to work for it) is to hold on to the ball in between the forties; but this requires ultra fit big boys who bend their knees at ruck.

The path to penalty purgatory is fitness; there will be a lag before old perceptions change. In a year, however, just as the Springboks showed from 2017 to 2019, history can be shuttered.

B. Restore good referee relations.

When was the last time a Wallaby captain enjoyed the edge in ref relations over opposition?

Australia’s national team of late, fairly or unfairly, has been saddled with perceptions of aggressive questions by its captains; mere impudence, relative silence, or sheer inarticulateness.

Will Skelton is an honest battler, but he never seemed to grasp how captaincy really works.

Lately, it has been three skippers in the front row, several in the second row, a trio of loosies: it has been since David Pocock that it seemed to work, even if he was a tad senatorial in delivery.

This has never made sense to me, as Aussies are known the world over for informality and gregariousness. It may be time to go to the more chatty backline for a captain and just let the fourteen or fifteen forwards toil.

Kellaway is a smooth talker with keen knowledge of the laws and the nuances of conversation. Certain scrumhalves (but definitely not others) could develop a good channel with most refs.

Some Test sides have shown a willingness to make a young player the captain (Jac Morgan in France; who led Wales to the quarterfinal the Wallabies should have had). But this leads us into the thorny subject of the flyhalf, the elephant in selection room.

C. Shapeless attack.

Joe’s teams have a shape in attack. The pivot is forever in motion with lines shooting out of it in bursts, like a pinwheel.

The tries never look as organic as French concoctions; even the counterattacks have a choreography.

But they happen. Especially in the first two phases.

Rather than key off of nine, a Joe attack depends on a Johnny Sexton (a decade or so) type. In any event, the Wallaby nines are apparent.

What is a Sexton type?

Big in personality (and in body), an analyst who can think with Joe through stats and plans, no pushover, calm under pressure, a terrible loser and contented only when winning, and able to see what is happening while it is happening.

Sexton was not Sexton when Joe met him: Sexton helped Joe become Joe, too.

Who is the Wallaby Sexton now that the old boys (note: Bernard Foley is 34), prematurely buried in 2023, are now good and gone?

Joe’s choice will not necessarily coincide with club form; a flyhalf is hardly ever able to be seen and judged independently of his team’s fortunes.

Noah Lolesio is but 24, with 20 caps and 124 Test points. He is not a bad Test ten but he has not shown the ability to lead a team and be a cold-hearted bastard. He could be a Joey Carbery or Ross Byrne type: the backup who can play fifteen and who will not bugger it up often. Joe would want a more dynamic leader at flyhalf.

Carter Gordon (8 caps) is just a bit younger (23) and bigger. He plays a lot bigger than Lolesio but seems to have less patience on attack and the propensity to get too hot with the ball. His 2023 will forever be a strange tale, but Joe is good at flipping the script. He may see a bit of Jordie Barrett (or Robbie Henshaw) in Gordon. If Samu Kerevi is unavailable, Gordon may get a gallop at inside centre if he cannot sort his line kicking and game management.

Ben Donaldson (24) was seen as the next big thing in schools: Australia Under 20, almost 40 Waratah caps, and a tour with Australia A before famously being last boy standing in the Lyon loss. His highs (the Wales comeback) and lows (the Italy loss; but should a loss to Italy be seen an automatic heresy now?) can be extreme. His languid motion does not always look Test class.

Uncapped Tane Edmed is a tough kid; six months older than Gordon and build more solidly than the rest of the young guns. In his 30 or so pro matches he has shown accuracy on attack and physical traits impossible to coach. Will Joe see him as a willing student? If so, he is a chance.

Tom Lynagh is just 20 and sized like Lolesio. With a dozen games for the Reds under his belt, he may be the one most likely to see a field in slow motion whilst playing and also enjoy several hours a week with Joe, poring over nuances in the All Black defensive fold. The playmaker positions in rugby have heritable traits. There was a 20-year old flyhalf who started his first Test match in the 2014 Rugby Championship. His name is Handre Pollard.

D. Ball retention.

Locks and a blindside are the key here: all knowing where to be and how to get there on time.

A good clean redeems a bad carry; even a great carry is bad without a clean.

Joe is unlikely to field a cleaning crew of Richie Arnold, Nick Frost, and Tom Hooper no matter how that makes a lineout tall.

A good tip for knowing the Wallaby 4-5-6 is to watch ruck cleanouts over the next few rounds.

E. A Team Ethos.

More than anything, Joe will want to build an academy, a philosophy, and stick to it, in two season increments, not weekly spurts or spasms. He will know that winning always solves the PR issues, the fan issues, the media issues, and the engagement issue.

July cometh.