Two men from the same starting XV
Michael Cheika made his first coaching appointments as Waratahs head coach earlier today, and he went looking in a very specific place. Stephen Hoiles and Wycliff Palu, both former Wallabies back-rowers, join his staff as assistants on two-year deals.
The choice carries a date. Hoiles and Palu were both in the Waratahs starting line-up for the 2014 Super Rugby final, the night New South Wales beat the Crusaders to claim the title. That remains the only Super Rugby trophy in the club’s history, twelve seasons on and counting. Cheika coached that side.
Recruiting the two of them is not sentimentality dressed up as strategy. Both have spent the years since building coaching records away from Sydney.
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What each one brings back
Hoiles, capped 16 times by Australia, arrives from California Legion, whom he guided to this year’s Major League Rugby final before they lost to the Chicago Hounds. He already owns an MLR title, won with the LA Giltinis in 2021, and he returned to Australia in 2023 to help Randwick end a long wait for a Shute Shield.
“I’ve grown up playing all my junior rugby in NSW. The Waratahs have always been the team you aspire to play for and it’s the same as a coach,” Hoiles said. He called the move a full circle moment and pointed straight at 2027, the season he says matters for the state.
Palu won 58 caps, more than three times Hoiles’ total, and spent the past year in Japan doubling as coach and player at third-division Kurita Water Gush Akishima. His most recent work on a touchline produced a 43-19 win for the First Nations and Pasifika XV over the Tonga President’s XV, the match that decided the inaugural Kaume’a Ofi Trophy.
A rebuild with a deadline
Palu, voted into the club’s Legend XVs this year, framed the return in personal terms. “It is a club that means a lot to me and has played a massive part not only in my rugby journey, but also in my life,” he said.
Cheika takes charge for the 2027 Super Rugby Pacific season. He now has two lieutenants who know exactly what the last successful version of this club felt like from the inside.
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