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Brumbies coach McKellar admits interest in Wallabies role
By Online Editors
Coach Dan McKellar has the Brumbies humming just over two years into his Super Rugby head coaching career but he admits when the Wallabies call, you answer.
McKellar has been sounded out by new Australian coach Dave Rennie to join his staff as an assistant leading into the 2023 World Cup.
The 43-year-old McKellar had a tough induction at the Brumbies, losing eight of the first 11 games he coached. He's since won 17 of 27.
In McKellar's second season, the Brumbies won the 2019 Australian conference and made the semi-finals. After five rounds this season they sit top of their group.
Rugby Australia has pitched McKellar the possibility of serving an apprenticeship under Rennie and then replacing the New Zealander as Wallabies coach after the World Cup.
The Brumbies boss has never made any secret of his ambitions to coach at international level but also wants to finish the job he started in Canberra.
The most likely scenario if McKellar joins the Wallabies is he'll coach in tandem with the Brumbies until his provincial contract expires at the end of next season.
"The Wallabies need an assistant coach and they raised it a few weeks back and it would be an honour to be involved in the Australian setup," McKellar told AAP.
"Coaches are no different to players in they want to coach at the highest level and I have aspirations to do that and I'm sure it would be a great environment to work in.
"I'm really flattered to be involved in those conversations but right now I'm focused on the Brumbies."
McKellar knows any discussions around succession plans are just that as he watched former colleague Stephen Larkham head down a similar road and it ended in tears.
Former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika declared his assistant and then-Brumbies coach Larkham his successor before sacking him at the end of 2018.
Larkham was widely seen as Cheika's scapegoat after one of Australia's worst Test seasons in history.
"That (coaching Brumbies and Wallabies) is something that's been done in the past but discussions haven't progressed to that point," McKellar said.
"In professional sport and coaching, things can change really quickly so you wouldn't be getting too excited about conversations around succession planning and that sort of thing."
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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