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Savea tweet regarding coaches changing countries revisited after Cheika helps Pumas against the Wallabies

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Seeing former Wallabies boss Michael Cheika enjoying his new role as a consultant with Argentina after five years with Australia has inspired Dan Leo to revisit a point made by Ardie Savea regarding the job mobility of coaches in international rugby. 

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The All Blacks flanker tweeted last year: “Random thought – rugby union players aren’t allowed to switch allegiance once playing for their country. Should the same rule apply to coaches?”

Leo, the CEO of Pacific Rugby Players Welfare, has now echoed this point, saying: “So weird seeing Cheika coaching ARG only a few months after coaching oppo AUS for a number of years – when players who play only a few minutes are locked into those countries for life.”

Video Spacer

The Aussie Rugby Show describes the Wallabies-Pumas draw as kissing your sister

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The Aussie Rugby Show describes the Wallabies-Pumas draw as kissing your sister

This is a topic discussed in the recent Oceans Apart: Greed, Betrayal and Pacific Rugby film, the situation where players are unable to switch allegiance to another country. The player highlighted in the documentary was Bristol Bears’ 17-cap All Black Charles Piutau, who won the last of his Test caps in 2015 but is unable to represent Tonga, for whom his brother Siale has played. 

There are plenty of differences between players and coaches, not least that players can be in and out of a team over their careers while coaches cannot, but the influence a player like Piutau could have on Tonga is comparable to the help that Cheika, the ex-Wallabies coach, has recently provided to Argentina. 

When looking at the coaches in the Autumn Nations Cup currently, Eddie Jones has worked with Australia, South Africa and Japan, Andy Farrell was previously an assistant coach with England, Shaun Edwards was previously with Wales and Vern Cotter was Scotland’s head coach. 

In the Tri-Nations, Argentina’s Mario Ledesma worked under Cheika with Australia, while current Wallabies boss Dave Rennie is from New Zealand, as is Wales’ Wayne Pivac. The All Blacks’ Ian Foster has stayed in New Zealand throughout his career, although his predecessors Graham Henry and Steve Hansen both had stints in charge of Wales. 

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This illustrates how much movement there is between coaching jobs and nobody bats an eyelid. Moreover, the game is better for it. But that is the point Leo and PRPW have been making about players.

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Tom 4 hours ago
Will Bristol's daredevil 'Bears-ball' deliver the trophy they crave?

Also a Bristol fan and echo your sentiments.


I love watching Bristol but their approach will only get them so far I think. Exeter played like this when they first got promoted to the prem and had intermittent success, it wasn't until they wised up and played a more balanced game that they became a consistently top side.


I really want Bristol to continue playing this brand of rugby and I don't mind them running it from under their posts but I don't think they need to do it every single time. They need to be just a little bit more selective about when and where on the pitch they play. Every game they put themselves under so much needless pressure by turning the ball over under their posts trying to do kamikaze moves when it's not required. By all means run it from your goal line if there is a chance for a counter attack, we all want to see Bristol running in 100m tries from under their posts but I think until they learn when to do it and when to be pragmatic, they are unlikely to win the premiership.


Defense has been a real positive from Bristol, they've shown a lot of improvement there... And I will say that I think this kamikaze strategy they employ is a very good one for a struggling side and could be employed by Newcastle. It's seems to have turned around Gloucester's fortunes. The big advantage is even if you don't have the biggest and best players, what you have is cohesion. This is why Scotland keep battering England. England have better individuals but they look muddled as a team, trying to play a mixed strategy under coaches who lack charisma, the team has no identity. Scotland come out and give it full throttle from 1-15 even if they struggle against the top sides, sides like England and Wales who lack that identity drown under the relentless will and synergy of the Scots. If Newcastle did the same they could really surprise some people, I know the weather is bad up there but it hasn't bothered the Scots. Bristol can learn from Scotland too, Pat is on to something when he says the following but Scotland don't play test matches like headless chickens. They still play with the same level of clarity and ambition Bristol do but they are much better at picking their moments. They needed to go back to this mad game to get their cohesion back after a couple of seasons struggling but I hope they get a bit wiser from matches like Leinster and La Rochelle.


“If there’s clarity on what you’re trying to do as a team you can win anything.”

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