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Thorn to be wild as new Reds coach

5th October, 2017
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Brad Thorn - possibly the best dual code player in history.
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5th October, 2017
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One less Super Rugby team, three new coaches and a departing CEO – Australian rugby is a wild workplace when David Pocock takes annual leave.

Oh, and apparently there’s going to be a new Asian rugby competition.

There will be plenty of intrigue heading into next year following a tumultuous 2017 that was overloaded with squabbles, injunctions, axings, hammerings and humiliations – although the depressing state of Australian rugby was starkly put into perspective when weighed up against the tragic death of father-of-two and well-respected Wallaby Daniel Vickerman.

But the storyline that has the potential to be the most fascinating is what Brad Thorn can do with the Queensland Reds.

Thorn was on Thursday named as the Reds’ new coach, replacing Nick Stiles who was dumped after just one season in the job.

Thorn only retired from top-tier rugby as a player in 2015 at the age of 40 after more than two decades of a freakish career in rugby league and union.

But in just two years he has convinced the Queensland Rugby Union he is the one to lift them out of their four-season rut.

Since Ewen McKenzie coached Queensland to the Super Rugby finals in 2013, Richard Graham, Matt O’Connor and Stiles have failed to keep pace with the competition’s elite teams and were axed.

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Thorn’s only head coaching experience has been with this year’s undefeated Queensland under-20s and the Queensland Country side, who currently sit at the top of the NRC ladder. Thorn was an assistant to Stiles in 2017 as the Reds won just four games.

This photo taken on July 31, 2010 shows New Zealand All Black lock Brad Thorn (top) crashing through the tackle of Australian Wallaby winger James O'Connor (bottom) in their Tr-Nations and Bledisoe Cup rugby union Test match, in Melbourne.

But Queensland Rugby Union CEO Richard Barker made it clear why Thorn was appointed to lead the Reds, who were seeking “a catalyst for change in culture, discipline and standards”.

“We feel strongly that Brad Thorn is the right person to lead this change,” said Barker, “and that his appointment as head coach is the necessary catalyst for that change.”

It is a major leap of faith from the Queensland Rugby Union board given Thorn’s inexperience, which pales when compared to his predecessor Stiles, who had a 10-year stint in various roles post-playing before getting the nod as Reds head coach.

But Thorn will be a back-to-basics, hard-nosed coach – and one that would already come with the respect of the current squad. The decision was recommended by a rugby committee including Nathan Sharpe, Mark Connors and Sam Cordingley, who no doubt would’ve been in close contact with Reds players.

He’s hardly likely to overcomplicate his approach – even in this age of multiple assistant coaches, contact coaches, kicking coaches and video analysts. He’s specifically been brought in to impose the same high standards and discipline he was noted for in winning rugby World Cups, NRL premierships, State of Origin series and Super Rugby titles.

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He won’t light up media conferences. He won’t introduce convoluted defensive strategies. He won’t be a revolutionary.

His battle with new Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels looms as an enthralling one next season.

Wessels, a coach in his mid-30s without an international pedigree as a player and known as an astute tactician and analyst, against Thorn, the dual-code dual-international who will have his Reds playing direct, fast and furious.

This is a decent upheaval for the Reds and a great test to see whether an old-school style coach can cut it at the elite level. But don’t expect Thorn to be giving too many flowery updates as he aims to transform Queensland in 2018.

“I believe actions speak louder than words,” Thorn said with typical Dunedin dryness on Thursday.

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