Wallabies assistant welcomes coach funding

Apr 28, 2017 - 3:40 AM Wallabies assistant Mick Byrne has welcomed the ARU's pledge to pour more money into coach education as the gulf in class between Australian and New Zealand rugby widens.

The trade-off for cutting one of Australia's five franchises in a revamped Super Rugby competition in 2018 is a $6 million annual saving for ARU number crunchers.

ARU chief Bill Pulver has promised to redirect funds to grassroots rugby and invest in development pathways for officials and budding coaches.

Sydney-born Byrne, who helped the All Blacks to two World Cups after making the transition from a premiership-winning AFL career to rugby coaching, is thrilled.

The former Melbourne, Hawthorn and Sydney ruckman has no doubt New Zealand's well established coaching structures have played a big part in Kiwi Super Rugby teams winning 15 out of 15 clashes with Australian opposition so far in 2017.

"Any money that comes towards coach education is going to be a bonus," said Byrne, in his second season working with Wallabies coach Michael Cheika.

"In any environment the coach is what drives the change. They're our leaders and if we're spending money to assist in education it's money well spent.

"We've got a lot of inexperienced coaches but very experienced rugby people and that's the value we've got.

"We just need to do a little bit of work."

Byrne said New Zealand's trans-Tasman dominance was largely because "their programs are a lot longer embedded in teams than Australian teams who have got a lot of new coaches, a lot of young coaches".

"Sometimes it takes a little while to get coaching styles embedded in programs and over in New Zealand they've had quite a lot of consistent messaging going on over the years," he said.

"And that's showing in probably the clarity or the continuity in games."

Australia's 1991 World Cup-winning mentor Bob Dwyer this month lamented how the likes of Cheika, his predecessor Ewen McKenzie, former Wallabies assistant Jim McKay, and current Super Rugby coaches Tony McGahan, Dave Wessels and Daryl Gibson - among others - "have not been part of the coaching development program in Australia".

Byrne, though, warned that the ARU's financial commitment to coach education wouldn't magically stop the talent drain to offshore opportunities.

"It's a small market and sometimes as a coach you're only in an environment for a while," he said.

"It's a special breed of coach that can stay and have longevity in an environment and you can probably count on one hand in any sport in Australia where a coach has achieved longevity.

"I'm not saying it can't be done.

"But because in Australian rugby there's five teams, and quite possibly four teams, there's five head coaching positions available and a couple of assistant coaching positions in each environment."

Source: AAP