Wales coach leaves role to ‘pursue other opportunities’
Wales assistant coach Jonathan Thomas has left his role to “pursue other opportunities in rugby”.
The 40-year-old joined Warren Gatland’s staff in January as the contact area coach and helped oversee Wales’ run to the World Cup quarter-final this year.
“I have decided to move on to pursue other opportunities in rugby and I am looking forward to the new challenges ahead,” said Thomas, who played 67 times for Wales during his playing career.
“With a young family in mind, I’m excited about some options that are out there.
“I will always be grateful for my time on the coaching team with Wales, but the time is right for me to make a change.
“The hard work and dedication of the players over the last year has been impressive to watch and I wish everyone well for the future.”
Gatland said: “Jonathan has been an important member of the team, he is an excellent coach with a great future in the game and has made a valuable contribution to the side’s development especially during the World Cup in France.
“We wish him well with his future plans and I know he will be an asset to any side in whatever capacity he chooses to pursue next.”
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Excellent game management in the last 15 or so minutes to close it out. Aussie got a bit panicky.
Go to commentsWhile all this is going on… I’ve been thinking more about the NFL draft system and how to make the commercial elements of the game more sustainable for SA teams who precariously live on the fringe of these developments. SA teams play in Europe now, and are welcome, because there’s a novelty to it. SA certainly doesn’t bring the bucks (like a Japan would to SR) but they bring eyes to it. But if they don’t perform (because they don’t have the money like the big clubs) - it’s easy come easy go… I think there is an element of strategic drafting going on in SA. Where the best players (assets) are sort of distributed amongst the major teams. It’s why we’re seeing Moodie at the Bulls for example and not at his homegrown Western Province. 20-30 years ago, it was all about playing for your province of birth. That has clearly changed in the modern era. Maybe Moodie couldn’t stay in the cape because at the time the Stormers were broke? Or had too many good players to fit him in? Kistchoff’s sabbatical to Ireland and back had financial benefits. Now they can afford him again (I would guess). What I am getting at is - I think SA Rugby needs to have a very strong strategy around how teams equitably share good youth players out of the youth structures. That is SA’s strong point - a good supply of good players out of our schools and varsities. It doesn’t need to be the spectacle we see out of the states, but a system where SA teams and SA rugby decide on where to draft youth, how to fund this and how to make it that it were possible for a team like the Cheetahs (for example) to end up with a team of young stars and win! This is the investment and thinking that needs to be happening at grassroots to sustain the monster meanwhile being created at the top.
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