SAINT-ETIENNE, France -- Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh has said there is no sugarcoating the Wallabies' "bitterly disappointing" Rugby World Cup performance, saying Eddie Jones' decision to put in place some foundations for the 2027 tournament on home soil can be no excuse for the team's likely first ever pool stage exit.
Waugh fronted the media the morning after the Wallabies concluded their pool campaign in France with a bonus-point 34-14 win over Portugal, but not before they were reduced to 13 men and put under the pump by the Europeans for virtually the entire final half-hour of the game.
The five competition points moved them above Fiji and into second spot in Pool C, but with the Pacific islanders having a game up their sleeve against Portugal -- and only needed a solitary bonus point to wrap up a quarterfinal berth -- Australia is likely to be departing France after only four games.
Asked about Jones' squad selections, Waugh said with the beauty of hindsight everything looked different. But he did not use the "work back from 2027" plan, as the coach has pushed and is endorsed by his chairman as an excuse for what is set to be a record-breaking new low for Australian rugby.
"I think you come to a World Cup looking to win, you don't go looking to win the 2027 World Cup when you're going to the 2023 World Cup," Waugh told reporters. "A lot of people spent a lot of money to come over here and support the Wallabies and they came here hoping to win the World Cup and that was certainly our expectation or our commitment.
"I'd much prefer to talk about the disappointment of not performing to where we'd like rather than the excuses that we're building for 2027 because I just don't think that washes and that's good enough."
Aske whether a lack of experience was one of the reasons why the Wallabies will likely be flying home next week, Waugh added: "We all acknowledge the performance of the Wallabies in this campaign was not nearly where the expectation of Australians and rugby supporters around the world [was], so it's very disappointing."
Meanwhile, Waugh insisted the governing body and Jones remain committed to one another, despite the 63-year-old failing to rubber stamp his future beyond the end of this week.
Speaking after the 20-point win on Sunday night, Jones said that he would not look beyond this week in terms of his contract or what a review into the Wallabies' poor campaign might unearth, the comments doing little to end speculation that he is preparing to walk out on his five-year contract not even 12 months into the role and join Japan instead.
"I am going to have three days off then three days of training so I'm heavily involved, that's the only answer I am going to give you at this stage," Jones said. "I don't mean to be rude, but I have got to focus on coaching this week."
Jones made comments earlier in the year that he would depart the Wallabies whether the team performed well or poorly at the World Cup, before walking them back and giving his assurance to Rugby Australia that he was committed to the role moving forward. But then a Japanese report linked him with the soon-to-be-vacant Brave Blossoms job, before a bombshell Sydney Morning Herald article on the morning of Australia's crushing loss to Wales alleged that Jones had actually had an interview with the Japanese Rugby Football Union on the eve of the World Cup.
Jones' ongoing failure to put at least some timeframe on his commitment to Australian rugby has only heightened speculation he is preparing to depart, but Waugh was steadfast in his belief that the Wallabies coach would be continuing beyond this year.
"I've made the comments I take Eddie for his word, and he's told us that there is nothing to it," Waugh said Monday morning. "We're committed to Eddie in the commitment that we made to him earlier in the year.
"And we'll go through the assessment of this campaign, but I think most importantly it's actually look at the overall structure of how Australian rugby is structured at the moment which is why we announced that reset a few months ago."
Asked whether the governing body would consider firing Jones, if he does in fact stay on as coach and not walk out as his heavily suspected, Waugh again affirmed RA's commitment to the 63-year-old.
"No, I think it's too early to say that. We'll do the assessment of the campaign but our intent is to continue on the path that we're on," the RA boss said.
"I think this is not so much around chopping and changing coaches as it is around actually just fixing the system. I think it's pretty evident when we lose a couple of players, the depth of the player that we're bringing through is not necessarily up to it.
"And you're not going to win World Cups or win international games if you don't have that depth and system supporting the national team."
RA has tried to shift some of the blame from the Wallabies' poor performance in France onto past administrations, with Waugh's comments about the structure following others from chairman Hamish McLennan that it was the result of a 20-year decline in the game Down Under.
"There's a number of reasons, there's a lot that's probably been declining across Australian rugby for some time and so I think it's a result of a period where we just seem to be slipping more and more," Waugh added.
"And it's really important for us to step back and say how can we improve the overall ecosystem so that we can produce players that can compete on the top stage, so I think we've got a lot of work to do."
Still, the RA chief executive described Australia's likely pool stage exit -- which will be first in Wallabies' history -- as "bitterly disappointing."
"We came here with a lot of hope and optimism and we sit here now, everything is out of our hands, and we've got to pray that Portugal get up against Fiji next week," he said. "But I think very disappointed with the journey to where we are today and we've got a lot of work to do."
Rugby Australia will conduct a review into the Wallabies' World Cup campaign after the team has returned home and while it may be that Jones stays on, there is still going to be significant change within his assistant staff.
Jason Ryles will return to rugby league and join Melbourne Storm, while French assistant Pierre-Henry Broncan is also on a short-term deal and Dan Palmer has a contract to join former Brumbies coach and Wallabies assistant Dan McKellar at Leicester.
So there is going to be at least some level of upheaval within the Wallabies coaching ranks, and potentially far more, though Waugh was confident the game could pick itself up from its current record-low and pointed to the recent announcement of centralization -- to which there is already strong resistance, particularly at the Brumbies -- as to why there was hope for the future.
"I think a pretty big moment for us was around the announcement we made a few months ago around resetting Australian rugby and coming together as a game, because I don't think it's just the high performance, it's actually just as much focus around community and pathways and grassroots," Waugh said.
"A lot of the focus in the press has been around the high performance aspects but this is just as much around getting into the community and connecting with the community as it is driving the high performance. So I think we can actually do both with the announcement we made around resetting Australian rugby."