Rugby News Service

Australia have the most experienced coaching staff at Rugby World Cup 2015 when international appearances as players are tallied up.

The Wallabies’ back-room staff share 221 international test caps between them, including 37 Rugby World Cup games. As players, the coaches also won 81 per cent of their World Cup games.

Stephen Larkham (AUS), the Australia team skills coach, accounts for 102 of those test caps, including 12 RWC caps, while scrum coach Mario Ledesma (ARG) won 84 caps for Argentina, including 18 at World Cups.

England have the second highest number of RWC test caps (27) and the third most caps overall (137) despite head coach Stuart Lancaster (ENG) having not played test rugby. Skills coach Mike Catt (ENG) has the most playing experience at Rugby World Cups among England’s coaches with 19 caps.

The Scotland coaching staff have 138 international appearances in total to be second overall in test experience while fifteen of the twenty head coaches have not played international test rugby at all.

In appointing resource coach Nathan Hines (SCO), Scotland head coach Vern Cotter (NZL) was quoted as saying: “Nathan has a huge amount of experience. He will be an excellent resource for many facets of our game. Nathan has been involved at the highest level, so his ability to communicate his experiences to the group and to individuals will be very useful.”

Hines brings the knowledge of 77 test caps to Scotland’s backroom, including 12 RWC caps.

Two of World Rugby’s top three ranked teams have the least international playing experience in their backroom staff.

South Africa have just four international caps among their coaching staff, all held by Ricardo Loubscher (RSA) who played two games in RWC 2003 and won them both.

New Zealand’s coaches have only won 17 caps as players between them, all held by assistant coach Wayne Smith.

New Zealand are also one of only two teams in RWC 2015 whose coaching team have no Rugby World Cup playing experience. The other is Italy, although they can boast 51 test caps between them.

Seven teams at RWC 2015 are led by New Zealand coaches, of which just one has test match experience. Canada head coach Kieran Crowley (NZL) has 19 test caps, including one game at RWC 1987 when New Zealand won the Webb Ellis Cup.

Uruguay is the only team at RWC 2015 where all coaches have World Cup playing experience. Their four coaches share 21 World Cup caps.