The Brumbies waved goodbye to plenty of big player names after 2019 but coach Dan McKellar is confident the stability in the team’s backroom staff will lay the foundations for the 2020 season.
McKellar is coming into his third year as head coach, after taking over from Stephen Larkham in 2018, and has maintained the same coaching team with assistants Laurie Fisher and Peter Hewat since then.
Fisher was already an established coaching figure while Hewat came to Canberra after stints in Japan and has emerged as a promising
Hewat coached the Schools and U18s team in 2019, splitting his responsibilities between Super Rugby and that side, and led them to a drought-breaking win over New Zealand across the ditch.
“I was really pleased and happy for Pete to have that success in what was a really tough buildup, he didn't get that group for long at all, I think only two or three training sessions before they played their first game,” McKellar said.
“He did a great job and I'm just very fortunate to have two quality assistant coaches in Lord (Laurie Fisher) and Hewy and we work really well together as a group of three and there's a lot of trust there.
“It's not about micro managing my assistant coaches, I trust what they do, we work closely together, we bounce ideas around and sometimes we'll have some conversations where we challenge each other but for the most part our thinking is very aligned.
“I think the players see that as well and that's really important for this group to know that the three of us and the other coaches are all working together because it's going to allow them to do the same.”
It wasn’t that long ago that McKellar was in a similar boat to Hewat, having been plucked from a coaching stint in Japan, that followed years of club rugby involvement, to be part of the Brumbies setup.
He spent five years as a Brumbies assistant before taking over from Larkham and in 2019, took the Brumbies to the top of the Australian conference.
Of the Australian Super Rugby franchises, interestingly, McKellar is the only one who served as an assistant for any great length of time with the team that he now coaches.
Rebels coach Dave Wessels served as a Brumbies and Western Force assistant before taking over the WA role and then moving to Melbourne; new Waratahs coach Rob Penney came from the Japanese system and Reds coach Brad Thorn coached the Queensland 20s and the NRC’s Queensland Country side before ascending to the top job.
There is certainly no one size fits all blueprint for coaching pathways but McKellar’s is something of a recent trend at the Brumbies and he says the production of coaches in Canberra is no coincidence.
“I think it's just something that's happened from day one. I think the Brumbies both form a playing and staff point of view provide people with opportunity,” he said.
“I'll be forever grateful to this club for giving me an opportunity because I coached club rugby, I went up to Japan for eight or nine months, Laurie and Bernie (Stephen Larkham) gave me an opportunity and if you don't get that opportunity, how are you ever going to know if the coach is good enough?
“It's no different to a player. No one's perfect at the start, no one's ever perfect but it's about giving them an opportunity and assisting them to grow and get better.”
Beneath their main coaching team, McKellar has one eye on the next crop of mentors as well with rookie scrum coach Ruaidhri Murphy in his second year and Dan Hooper the Brumbies academy coach.
The ACT franchise has made just one change to its backroom staff heading into 2020 with the departure head of athletic performance Ben Serpell, replaced by John Mitchell.
Off the field, too, McKellar said he was pleased to see stability in the commercial side of the business with CEO Phil Thomson staying on.
The Brumbies went through some turbulent years with CEOs and the shock resignation of Michael Thomson last year shaped as a potential setback but club stalwart Phil Thomson steadied the ship.
“We're really stable on-field from a playing point of view and obviously within our coaching group and importantly across in the commercial area as well with Phil and his team, which makes our job a lot easier,” McKellar said.
“Jack Gibson said it many years ago and it's so true to do our work and perform really well and have confidence to do what we do on field you need it to be sorted out off-field.
“The longer you work with people the better the relationships become, more honest, more trust you build with each other and very fortunate the relationship we've got in high performance with Thommo because we know they trust us to do our job.”
The Brumbies play their first preseason match on Thursday January 23 in Albury. Buy tickets here.
