They interlace though, to a major degree.
The core issue in all the coaching-related discussion we engage in here is not Cheika.
The core issue is that it is evident - and has been for some considerable time - that the ARU/RA have not assembled the competence and experience essential to the task of the selection, development, oversight and general recruitment of professional rugby coaches in this country.
Worst is, they have not even understood the need for it. Accordingly, they have no idea how to perform this crucial strategic task set and they have not been seriously interested in learning how to perform it. In this, our topmost supervisory body has been both deeply complacent and deeply derelict in their duty to the Australian rugby players and public that they are formally bound to serve.
The consequences are everywhere from the conduct and competencies of the Wallaby coaching group, the lack of Australian professional coaching excellence at Super level, the lack of a robust long-term plan (and the resources to support it) to develop amateur level Australian coaches into capable professional grade coaches, and so on.
Appointing a person such as R Kafer - an avowed poor rugby coach for all of a few months and whom possessed zero experience of elite rugby coaching development systems - to head some form of emergency surgery to the problem and vacuum of their own making is evidence enough of the strategic incompetence of the ARU/RA board and its operational management in this mission critical area of code development and sustainment.
Given this history there is no supporting evidence that RA 2018 version will possess the capability to conduct a sound near-term reconstruction of Cheika's coaching group, or even dispense with Cheika and replace him in a sensible, considered manner.
There is just as much likelihood that RA will lurch into some panic-stricken, ersatz choice such as promoting Larkham to Wallaby HC (the RA 'anointed successor' - can you bear it?) or simply in frozen-deer-in-the-headlights mode, do nothing but 'we support Cheika to the hilt'.
The central problems in Australian rugby all are rooted in an incestuous, complacent, arrogant, self-satisfied, elitist culture and MO that has pervasively dominated the appointment of board members and officers to positions of rugby power in this country for at least 10-15 years.
Until this deep-rooted dereliction and ethical deficiency changes radically, the state of the code in Australia will continue its inexorable decline and degradation. As we witness in 2018.
. Unless Schmidt has a major change of heart in the next 12 months I just don't see him ever being an option for HC.