Dumped Wallabies assistant Stephen Larkham says he still aspires to coaching at the highest level despite the tumult and controversy of the past three months.
Fresh from a perspective-giving trip to Laos with official Rugby World Cup charity Child Fund Pass it Back, Larkham said he was undeterred by a messy exit from the Wallabies coaching set-up.
The news could set him up for a showdown with other likely candidates for the Wallabies top job, including Dave Rennie, Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland, with current coach Michael Cheika almost certain to leave the post after this year's World Cup.
"I'm up here in Brisbane at the moment with the local coaches coming in, club coaches and school coaches. What's interesting to identify is that everyone who is a coach and was in that room up here, is keen to get further in their coaching," Larkham said.
"The motivation varies from trying to help rugby out, to try to be the best I can be in my position, to just chasing success. I'm no different, there's no doubt about that. I'm no different. Every coach who's coaching professionally would be no different.
"It would be a huge honour and you've got to look at the motivation for it, obviously, but everyone at the top level has the correct motivation there."
In the month since Rugby Australia announced he was the sacrificial lamb for the worst Wallabies season in history, Larkham has sunk his teeth into his new role as national high-performance coach adviser.
It's a long title for a role that he can largely make his own. Already he has narrowed his focus to the Aussie 7s program, the Junior Wallabies and the Wallaroos.
He was in Brisbane at the weekend to watch the Reds Women take on RugbyWA in round two of Super W and addressed a coach development workshop at Ballymore.
But in the immediate aftermath of his exit from the Wallabies, the 102-Test former five-eighth joined Wallaroo Emily Chancellor in Laos, a landlocked country in south-east Asia where the Australian arm of charity ChildFund is doing life- and community-changing work with its rugby and personal development program Pass It Back.
World Rugby announced on Sunday it had received $2.8 million in pledged donations for ChildFund through its ticketing partnership with the 2019 World Cup, a record figure.
"Laos was amazing. It was a timely trip definitely, there's no doubt about that. Just that ability to focus on another aspect of the game," he said.
"Because of everything that was going on prior to leaving I didn't really get a chance to look into the program.
"The majority of teams were girls and they were coached by girls and their skills – 12-year-old girls to 15-year-old girls – were amazing. Their skills were unbelievable, playing on dirt and rocks, no shoes. They just knew how to play rugby.
"It was eye-opening. I was proud. It made me proud to be Australian, one, because ChildFund Australia is associated with the program, and two, it made me proud to be a rugby player because I could see how much of an impact rugby was having on the individual lives of the kids and therefore the communities they took it back to."
The former Brumbies head coach, who was anointed by Cheika as his successor before their coaching relationship soured, said he was pleased to be seeing out his contract with Rugby Australia.
His move sideways in the organisation raised eyebrows when it was announced, but Larkham said he believed the organisation was fair dinkum about looking after coaches.
"There are plenty of coaches in the past, we were talking about it yesterday in the workshop, like Richard Graham – a fantastic coach, with so much experience, has developed so well, and the opportunities just weren't there for him in Australia," he said.
"I think it's genuine, from the CEO to the board through to everyone in Rugby Australia that we are genuine in looking after our own. There is a push at the moment and certainly the right push to maintain our IP [intellectual property] and to develop our IP."