England’s 2007 Rugby World Cup captain Phil Vickery is at the top of the Melbourne Rebels recruitment list and triple Sydney premiership-winning coach Damien Hill has emerged as the favourite to work under the club’s new head coach, Rod Macqueen.
The Melbourne Rebels have scheduled a press conference at the new Melbourne Rectangular Stadium for Wednesday morning to announce 1999 Wallabies World Cup-winning coach Macqueen as their director of coaching and head coach.
The signing of Macqueen is being seen as something of a coup even though he has not coach at any level since he left the Wallabies job in 2001.
He has however been involved in rugby since that time and assisted the IRB with the experimental law variations.
His assistant Hill, coached Sydney University to the past three Shute Shield victories while having a direct hand in a fourth premiership as the club’s former director of coaching.
Sources have told The Australian newspaper that Vickery, who captained England to the 2007 World Cup final against eventual champion South Africa – upsetting the heavily-favoured Wallabies at the quarter-final stage in Marseille – has been identified as a linchpin signing.
The Rebels were only actually awarded the Super 15 licence a week ago so the club has done little other than put out feelers for whether 33-year-old Vickery is at all interested in a Down Under move so late in his career but initial indications are however promising.
A lot will depend on how much Vickery wants to stay on in England in order to fulfil his dream of playing in a third World Cup tournament next year in New Zealand, having claimed a winner’s medal in Australia in 2003 and a runner-up medal in France four years later.
Vickery’s World Cup prospects might have taken a blow after the British and Irish Lions series where he went up against Springbok strongman Tendai “The Beast” Mtawarira.
New Zealand referee Bryce Lawrence penalised Vickery four times for alleged scrum infringements, even though it was evident Mtawarira was illegally angling in on the English veteran.
Vickery resurrected his reputation with a powerful scrummaging display in the final Test at Ellis Park claimed that Lawrence admitted to him after the series that he may have got some of his Durban decisions wrong. “Oh well, it’s a bit f . . . ing late now,” Vickery told the media of his response.
Vickery is currently injured and will miss the entire SixNations tournament as he recovers from a recent neck operation but has made so many come backs that he could yet figure in his old Martin Johnson’s 2011 Rugby World Cup plans.
On the other hand if Vickery does not figure in England’s plans for the world cup his his club London Wasps have indicated that they want him to keep on playing after his contract expires at the end of this year.
