Previously warring factions have been urged to unite immediately to ensure Melbourne’s new Super team kicks off on the right foot in 2011.

The decision to award Melbourne the new licence in an expanded competition comes just months after the Victorian Rugby Union and rival bid team VicSuper15, led by Harold Mitchell, engaged in a bitter fight to control the team.

They have more recently buried the hatchet but a “Rebels Rugby” board structure – involving officials from both groups – is yet to be finalised.

VRU chairman Gary Gray felt “overwhelming relief” when independent arbitrators awarded Melbourne the licence ahead of South Africa’s Eastern Cape but admitted there was no time to celebrate.

With the team needing to start recruiting players from early in the New Year, Gray said it was essential a chief executive was appointed by Christmas, and a coach soon after.

“Once you get the CEO the next appointment is the coach because how do you entice a player?” he said.

Following a messy process which undermined Melbourne’s strong claims, the Australian Rugby Union appointed administrator John Wyllie to set up a joint board structure for the bid.

While it’s understood not all bridges have been mended, Gray said the VRU were committed to working with their former rivals.

“I’m very hopeful as is everyone on this side of the table and we look forward to finalising arrangements with the ARU,” Gray said.

“That’s moving along very well with Harold Mitchell and the Rebels Rugby board working well with John Wyllie, as we all are, to ensure the very best outcome for Melbourne in terms of the team ownership structure.”

Melbourne have a long list of coaching candidates headed by foreign-based Australians.

Leinster mentor Michael Cheika has been seen as the favourite for the post but the chance of more success and building his reputation further in Ireland, after he led the team to this year’s Heineken Cup title, is understood to have left him keen to stay.

Munster’s Tony McGahan, Bath’s Steve Meehan and John Mulvihill are all candidates, as well as Wallabies forwards coach Jim Williams and his predecessor Michael Foley, currently an assistant coach at NSW, and dumped Reds mentor Phil Mooney.

Victorian-born Ewen McKenzie, a favourite until he signed with Queensland in September, now has the job to safeguard the Reds from a repeat of the pillaging in 2005 when the Western force were admitted to the Super 14.

While plenty have questioned whether Australia has the depth to handle five provincial sides, McKenzie felt it was a move in the right direction when the embattled code was under fire.

“You can’t be doing the same thing and revamping the product and the competition is important in the Australian marketplace,” he said.

Meantime, Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom, who starred for Leinster, has endorsed the idea of an annual world club challenge involving the leading teams from the Super 15 and Europe’s Heineken Cup.

© AAP 2012

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