Big names linked to Brumbies coaching job

Stephen Larkham and Simon Cron are being touted as potential replacements for outgoing Brumbies head coach Dan McKellar.

McKellar will coach the Brumbies in Super Rugby Pacific next season then relinquish the role to focus full-time on the Wallabies, where he is forwards coach and a senior assistant to Dave Rennie.

The Brumbies announced his departure in early August and appear to be pushing hard to lock in a replacement, with interviews under way, despite having a full season up their sleeve before McKellar leaves.

Ireland-based Larkham and Cron, who coaches in Japan, are the names being thrown up, as well as highly rated former Brumbies assistant Peter Hewat, the team’s backs coach Rod Seib and Junior Wallabies coach Nathan Grey. Forwards coach Laurie Fisher is understood to be staying on and played a role in screening candidates for the job.

Larkham is senior coach at Munster under head coach Johann Van Graan and is in the last year of his deal at the Irish province.

He was linked to the Waratahs job before Darren Coleman’s appointment earlier this year but last month appeared to put exit rumours to bed with a declaration he wanted to re-sign and stay in Limerick.

Stephen Larkham has been linked twice to an Australian return.Credit:Brook Mitchell

“Of course. We all [the rest of the coaching staff] do,” he told Irish media.

“It’s a great environment here at the moment. We certainly feel like things are building in the right direction. We had a really good year last year and we want that to continue.”

Nevertheless, sources told the Herald that Larkham was yet to re-sign and had been in contact with the Brumbies. He did not respond to the Herald’s inquiries.

Cron is head coach of Japanese League One side Toyota Verblitz and has a two-year deal, understood to be in the form of a one-year option after the first season. That would make him available at the right time for the Brumbies, but the Shute Shield-winning former Norths coach did not respond to requests for comment.

He is coaching under former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen after leaving the forwards coach role at the Waratahs in 2019.

He is regarded as the one that got away for NSW and was again linked to the club earlier this year when Rob Penney was sacked. He had only just re-signed with Toyota.

It would be a big move for the New Zealander, who had made Sydney his long-term home with wife Aimee and their children before departing for Japan.

But there are few better coaching jobs in Australian rugby, with a strong roster, settled administration and a reputation as the team players see as their best development option under the likes of Fisher and McKellar.

Hewat is highly rated in Canberra after spending two years as an assistant under McKellar. He joined the Ricoh Black Rams in Japan at the end of 2020 and remains there, coaching alongside former Brumbies coaching stablemate Ruaidhri Murphy.

Grey is another highly rated coach in the Australian system. He spent time in Japan before being unveiled as Junior Wallabies coach, but that program has been more or less shuttered with the World Rugby U20s Championship cancelled for two straight years due to COVID-19. He did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

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