Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt may be a New Zealander who has worked all around the world, but Melbourne – a city that treats Australian rules football as a religion and rugby as a novelty – may be about as foreign as it gets. There on Tuesday, on an unseasonably warm May afternoon, Schmidt smiles widely and nods as he wanders around the home of the Western Bulldogs, taking in what he can of Whitten Oval.
Alongside him is Luke Beveridge, one of the most respected coaches in the AFL, who shares book recommendations and notes on success. “We did talk about the ruck briefly,” Schmidt says. “But the ruck in AFL is – it’s contact, all right – but not quite the same level of contact, and certainly not the same work on the ground.”
