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Brumbies coach McKellar admits interest in Wallabies role

Brumbies coach Dan McKellar. (Photo / Getty Images)

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.

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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.

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“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.

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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.”

Watch: Six Nations £300m paywall deal: ‘We would not rule anything out’.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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