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With a football World Cup already at fever pitch and a State of Origin decider just days away, this weekend’s Test between Australia and Ireland in Sydney has Rugby Australia taking a knife to a gunfight in the battle for a sporting nation’s eyeballs.

That’s a shame because it’s the Wallabies’ first outing for 2026 and Allianz Stadium is a sellout. The Test also marks the first round of rugby’s bold new venture, the Nations Championship, a 12-team contest between the best sides of the north and south to be fought across both hemispheres in two windows: July and November.

Australian rugby is on a high after striking a crucial blow in the code wars this week, announcing the Wallabies and All Blacks will play historic Bledisloe Cup Tests in Brisbane on Anzac Day in 2027, 2029 and 2031 for the first time in their 123-year rivalry. This spark lights the fuse on three fascinating weeks in which the Wallabies’ must metamorphosise into a team that can win their own World Cup at home in 2027.

Next weekend Australia will meet France in Brisbane then face off with Italy in Perth. Even without the competition from Fifa and NRL, it’s a torrid way to start the season. All three of these opponents defeated the Wallabies on November’s European tour, dooming them to seven losses in their final eight Tests and a 5-10 win-loss in 2025.

But that was then and this is now. If Australia are to climb from their current world ranking of No 8 into a team that beats the world next October, it starts on Saturday. Ireland are world No 3 and thumped the Wallabies 46-19 last time but Andy Farrell’s side is missing stars Caelan Dorrius, Jack Crowley, Andrew Porter and Mack Hansen.

The home team has another incentive to win as well. This month’s Tests are coach Joe Schmidt’s farewell tour as Wallabies boss before he hands the reins to Les Kiss. Schmidt, 60, took over the national side in 2024 when it was a rabble and rebuilt it, blooding a record number of debutantes to claw 11 wins from 28 Tests in charge.

These young dogs of war might not yet be the golden generation Australian rugby badly needs but they love their “Grandpa Joe” and will fight to send him out a winner. If the Wallabies can finish his career as they started it, with three victories, Schmidt’s record as Wallabies mentor can inch closer to 50%, and a legacy of: He held the line.

The fact a 50% win record passes as success says plenty for Wallabies fortunes of late. Even as RA trumpeted the Bledisloe coup, they were sacking Waratahs coach Dan McKellar and starting the search for NSW’s seventh coach in as many years. But there’s a transition even more awkward than fans rising at 4am on Saturday for the Socceroos v Egypt then riding the adrenaline (or caffeine) until the Wallabies at 8pm.

How will an already “hot and cold” Wallabies side respond to Kiss, a new coach with new strategies one month into a new season? Will Schmidt’s favourite soldiers have a place in the Kiss army? Is 14 months and 19 Tests enough time for a new coach to win the team’s trust and forge a side capable of seizing a first World Cup since 1999?

“I’m not going to be a big change agent,” Kiss said in April, insisting the handover between the old friends, who coached Ireland over 40 Tests together, is “not a revolution … it’s an evolution. The right things, the big rocks, will stay in place. The themes that matter – discipline, accountability, planning – will remain the same.”

Schmidt had offered his own assurances the month prior. “I’ll always be around to help Les but when he takes over I’ll give him a degree of separation so he can set his own agenda and forge ahead. For now, things are transitioning pretty seamlessly, and Les will spend the week with [the squad] before the Brisbane and Perth Tests.”

Since Kiss finished his three-year contract at the Queensland Reds, master and apprentice have been in cahoots daily regarding the national side. But although the Wallabies have spent the week training at North Sydney Oval, where Kiss made his name as a flying League winger for the Bears, this weekend is very much Joe’s show.

Schmidt has called together a typically diverse squad for his last hurrah – a blend of uncapped young firebrands (Lachlan Shaw and Miles Amatosero, both over 200cm), overseas-based stars (Len Ikitau, Tom Hooper and Angus Bell), rehabbed heroes (Tom Wright and Tate McDermott), even a retiree (Test record-holder James Slipper).

Australia have lost their last five to Ireland – their longest losing streak in 99 years of Tests between the nations – but Schmidt has a few cards to play against his old side. Can he inspire a famous Wallabies win and gift his protege Kiss a team on the up? He answers with a twinkle: “A lot of unseen positives are about to become visible.”