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McKenzie must stay in Australia

Roar Guru
19th March, 2013
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Ewen McKenzie has November to redeem himself and his side. AP Photo/Francois Mori
Roar Guru
19th March, 2013
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1220 Reads

Ewen McKenzie has shown his hand: he wants to be a coach of an international team and no longer the coach of the Queensland Reds.

What a shame for the Queensland, as they were a shambles before he turned up as coach.

If McKenzie does leave it will hurt Queensland rugby and Australian rugby.

The strength of Australian rugby is based on the quality of coaches supervising the Australian Super Rugby sides.

It is only when Australia has the strongest SR conference, stronger than New Zealand or South Africa, will it have a chance of dominating the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship.

If Ewen McKenzie has his eye on being the next Wallaby coach he should be told categorically by the ARU that there is no job vacancy until Robbie Deans, the most successful Super rugby coach ever, wants to leave or some other event which causes a vacancy.

McKenzie should be encouraged to stay where he is for the sake of Australian rugby and the valuable contribution he has to make towards its success.

Australian needs more quality coaches like Ewen McKenzie, not less and he must stay at all costs.

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Perhaps the ARU could offer master coaches like Mackenzie a top up cash bonus as a demonstration of their appreciation of his value.

Top up fees are offered to Super Rugby players who play for the Wallabies, why shouldn’t a valuable coach like Mackenzie get a top up fee, he is probably worth about seven individual players with his contribution.

The same situation can be applied for all of the Australian SR coaches, the master coaches are undervalued.

Well coached teams who play well fill up football stadiums, encourage sponsors to put money into the game, make the game more popular and last but not least, they bring on the talent; for example, the Brumbies under Jake White, a rabble of nobodies one year ago, now they are a team of future Wallabies.

Australia needs master coaches like Ewen McKenzie or Jake White and a system for creating more master coaches for all levels of rugby from schools to the Wallabies.

If the ARU mismanage the Ewen McKenzie situation then there should be an assessment as to who should be replaced by a fitter smarter more accurate candidate, like any other team.

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