New Zealand Rugby's verdict on Clayton McMillan's departure

Clayton McMillan’s early departure from the Chiefs and New Zealand Rugby has been confirmed, with the Chiefs head coach heading to Munster ahead of the 2025/26 season.

McMillan’s stint at the club has been historically successful, reaching consecutive Super Rugby finals despite inheriting a team in the midst of a record-equalling 11-game losing streak.

That streak was begun under McMillan’s predecessor, Warren Gatland.

Despite the compounding challenges of having big shoes to fill and a remarkably poor record to turn around, McMillan was able to thrive in the role and soon had his team back in contention for titles.

The coach will now complete his fifth and final season with the club before heading to Ireland for the next chapter of his coaching journey.

The news broke last week, and it was revealed that McMillan had an exit clause to leave ahead of his final contracted year, 2026, if an opportunity presented itself.

“It was big news, wasn’t it? Clayton and New Zealand Rugby have always had a really strong relationship. We rate Clayton incredibly highly, not just as a coach but as a person,” New Zealand Rugby General Manager of Professional Rugby Chris lendrum told Newstalk ZB‘s Jason Pine.

“True to form, Clayton has been really open and honest with us for some time now about the fact that he saw his next coaching position being offshore, for a variety of reasons. And, he let us know immediately really when this approach came from Munster. We’ve been discussing that for a few weeks, and those discussions led to the announcement.”

New Zealand Rugby are ultimately responsible for hiring coaching personnel, but it is very much a collaborative process when it comes to finding McMillan’s successor.

Lendrum pointed to a growing distinction between the roles of head coach and assistant coach when looking ahead to the next chapter for the Chiefs, saying the club are well placed, but not all assistant coaches are cut out for, or want to put their name forward for head coaching roles.

“It’s very individualised. There’s no one pathway in coaching, it’s a really hard career. Coaches tend to move around a lot, it can be hard on family. In this case, we, of course, would have loved to have Clayton, and the Chiefs are on record saying this as well, we would have loved to have him collectively in New Zealand in 2026, but we knew that would be his last year.

“In this case, I would rate Munster as one of the top half dozen or so club coaching opportunities in the world. It’s a province with a proud rugby history and great links to New Zealand. Traditionally, European competitions play a lot of knockout rugby.

“And in this case, we felt collectively that the Chiefs had good succession options available to them who could be ready to coach earlier than 2027. So, all of those things go in the mix.”