Former All Blacks coach John Mitchell said on Wednesday he was not in the running to replace sacked Wallaby chief Eddie Jones, preferring to focus on building Perth’s new Super 14 team, the Western Force.
Mitchell’s manager, John Fordham, said the New Zealander informed Australian Rugby Union (ARU) selectors that he was not interested in the Wallabies coaching position vacated when Jones was sacked last week.
But Mitchell did say he would help the new Wallaby coach in the task of rebuilding the national team, which has lost eight of its last nine internationals, including a sequence of seven successive defeats.
Mitchell would ”be available if invited to assist the new Wallabies head coach and his support team in any way he could,” Fordham said in a statement.
”Whilst John’s priority and focus is clearly the Western Force to which he has been contracted for three years, he is deeply committed, as well, to helping promote and develop Australian rugby, grow rugby generally and to grow Wallabies,” he said.
New South Wales Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie is considered the front-runner for the top Wallabies job.
Jones himself has thrown his weight behind David Nucifora, who led the ACT Brumbies to a Super 12 title in 2004 and now coaches the Auckland Blues. – Sapa-AFP