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Western Force eye trans-Tasman supremacy following announcement of new chief executive

By AAP
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Former NZ rugby administrator Tony Lewis has been handed the job of turning the Western Force into a trans-Tasman powerhouse after being named as the franchise’s new chief executive.

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The Force have been on the lookout for a new chief executive since Mark Evans announced his retirement late last year.

Evans, who will continue in the role until February 1, said COVID-19 travel restrictions combined with having family in the UK made it impossible for him to carry out the role long term.

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Lewis played for the Western Suburbs club (now Wests Scarborough) while living in Perth in the late 1980s and represented the State in 1987 before making a successful transition into sporting administration.

He has been the chief executive of the Tasman Rugby Union for seven years, during which time the Tasman Mako has emerged as New Zealand’s champion provincial team and become a production line for Super Rugby and international players.

The Mako won back-to-back New Zealand provincial titles in 2019 and 2020 and have appeared in a total of five grand finals.

Before his role as Tasman chief executive, Lewis was general manager at Sydney’s Randwick Rugby Club, and a high performance cricket manager at the NSW Blues.

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Billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest saved the Force from extinction when the Perth-based franchise was controversially axed from Super Rugby ranks by Rugby Australia in 2017.

Forrest had big plans to launch a breakaway tournament that was first dubbed World Series Rugby and later morphed into Global Rapid Rugby.

The COVID-19 crisis brought Global Rapid Rugby to a halt after just one round of its debut season in 2020, but the pandemic opened the door for the Force to be included in an Australian-only version of Super Rugby last year.

Cash-stricken Rugby Australia have since thrown their full support behind the Force, who have been invited back into Super Rugby AU in 2021 and will also compete in the new trans-Tasman competition.

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“Tony’s appointment is another key building block for the Force and underlines my drive for Western Australia to have the best Academy system across all of Australian sport, through which we can develop, recruit and retain the best young players, just as the Mako have done so successfully in New Zealand,” Forrest said.

“This program will not only strengthen local club and school rugby, but also help support the success of the Wallabies as the Force looks to produce more international players.”

The Force have embarked on a huge recruiting drive, snaring players such as Irish superstar Rob Kearney, Argentinian internationals Tomás Cubelli, Julián Montoya, Tomás Lezana, Santiago Medrano and Domingo Miotti, as well as Wallabies duo Tevita Kuridrani and Tom Robertson.

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Nickers 4 hours ago
Why the All Blacks overlooking Joe Schmidt could yet hurt them in the Bledisloe battle

I've never understood why Razor stayed on in NZ after winning 3 SR titles in a row. Surely at that point it's time to look for the next thing, which at that stage of his career should not have been the ABs, and arguably still shouldn't be given his lack of experience in International rugby. What was gained by staying on at the Crusaders to win 4 more titles?


2 years in the premiership, 2 years as an assistant international coach, then 4 years taking a team through a WC cycle would have given him what he needed to be the best ABs coach. As it is he is learning on the job, and his inexperience shows even more when he surrounds himself with assistant coaches who have no top international experience either.


He is being faced with extreme adversity and pressure now, possibly for the first time in his coaching career. Maybe he will come through well and maybe he won't, but the point is the coaching selection process is so flawed that he is doing it for the first time while in arguably the top coaching job in world rugby. It's like your first job out of university being the CEO of Microsoft or Google.


There was talk of him going to England if the ABs didn't get him, that would have been perfect in my opinion. That is a super high pressure environment and NZR would have been way better off letting him learn the trade with someone else's team. I predicted when Razor was appointed that he would be axed or resign after 2 years then go on to have a lot of success in his next appointment. I hope that doesn't happen because it will mean a lot of turmoil for the ABs, but it's not unthinkable. Many of his moves so far look exactly like the early days of Foster's era when he too was flanked by coaches who were not up to the job. I would like to see some combination of Cotter, Joseph, Brown, and Felix Jones come into the set up.

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