Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh opens up on Eddie Jones exit and historic new deal with Japan

In 2026, the Wallabies are set to face Japan in a home-and-away series for the first time.

It’s part of a greater plan to align more closely with Japanese rugby over the coming decade, with revelations they will bid to host the 2035 World Cup.

This all could have been out the window when, in November 2023, Japan confirmed the signing of Jones as coach, following months of denials by the then Wallabies boss that he had interviewed for the role.

Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh, who took Jones’ word throughout several tumultuous weeks, was informed by JRFU chairman Kensuke Iwabuchi that he had indeed taken the head coaching role after stepping down from the Wallabies after the World Cup.

Waugh, who is in Japan ahead of the Wallabies’ clash against Jones’ team on Saturday, said there wasn’t a deterioration of trust between the unions over the scandal.

“Well not with the JRFU, my counterpart there Kinsuke, I’m very good friends with and I’ve got a lot of time for, so there’s a strong personal relationship,” Waugh told Code Sports.

“Like all national unions, there’s broader board involvement in such material decisions as a head coach of the international team.

“I’ve always had a very transparent relationship with Ken and as soon as they got to a position in their process where they were wanting to appoint Eddie, Ken reached out to me and I was the first to know. So we’ve got a very strong relationship, very transparent.

“At the time we were cleaning up our own backyard to ensure that we set ourselves up for 2027, and Japan were probably a little bit disappointed with their 2023 campaign as well, and they want to set themselves up for 27, so it was pretty mature.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Ken and the JRFU, and I was the first to know once that resolved that they were going to appoint Eddie.”

Will it be awkward to encounter Jones on Saturday?

“No, I don’t think so,” Waugh said.

“I’ve known Eddie for a very long time. It goes back to when I was a ball boy for Warringah and he was playing for Randwick, and he used to dry his hands on the front of my Warringah Rats ball boy jersey.

“So I’ve known Eddie for a long time, and obviously playing under Eddie, and he’s gone on and had a very successful international coaching career.

“It was no secret that we had a difficult period you know as a game in 2023, but we’ve certainly focused on what we can do in our own backyard to ensure that we’re creating the right environment for the players to have the best chance of succeeding.”

Remarkably, the Wallabies have never played Japan in the capital city of Tokyo.

Saturday’s game will mark an important milestone – the teams have only played six times previously – while Waugh has been negotiating games between the two countries for 2026 and beyond.

With New Zealand and South Africa having organised their own four-Test “The Greatest Rivalry” series next year, Australia is establishing a closer partnership with a country that last year had a gross domestic product of $US4 trillion.

“It’s not just Australian rugby, you can see that the leadership that the Albanese government’s leaning into with the relationship with the Japanese government here, the fourth largest economy in the world,” Waugh said.

“It’s in our time zone, travel into Japan is reasonably convenient. When we look at this market, it’s around, what are the growth corridors economically in the world?

And if you look at the growth in Japanese rugby, springboarded by the 2019 hosting of the Rugby World Cup, and with the commentary around their hopes to host in 2035 with a bid, it’s the perfect time for us to lean in and form deeper and more meaningful relationships in terms of our teams in gold.

“We’ve obviously got that window next year for a couple of Tests. We’ve always said touring is important, as is touring for the Japanese into other markets as well. So we’ll be looking at potential home and away Tests next year with the Japanese, and give our players that opportunity and strengthen the ties between our two unions.”

While World Rugby is desperate to break into the United States market as the next financial frontier for the game, Australia’s strategy of working with Japan is set to reap more benefit.

Japan recently expanded it’s three division competition to 26 clubs, adding three more teams at a time most competitions around the world are shrinking or consolidating.

While France Rugby Union lost a reported net $27 million for hosting the 2023 World Cup, Japan hosted the most economically lucrative World Cup in history in 2019, generating $7.6 billion.

Should they defeat the 2035 joint bid from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as expected bids by Spain and Italy, Japan could expect even more of a windfall in 10 years’ time.

“When they went through to the World Cup quarterfinals in 2019, I think they had over 100 million people watch the quarterfinal that they played in, which is pretty good in a population of about 130 million,” Waugh said.

And while Jones may have left a sour taste with his controversial departure, he will play a convenient marketing villain for the games to come.

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“I enjoy beating Australia,” Jones said this week.

“I coached against them 10 times for England and beat them nine times.

“Playing against you own country, there’s always a certain amount of different feeling involved in it, but it just brings out the extreme competitive spirit within yourself.”