If you ever wanted to see true unity within Australian rugby, you only needed to wait for the New Year and the new Super Rugby season, for the inevitable crowning of the New South Waratahs as favourites.
‘#FebruaryChampions’ is a common refrain that fans of the other Australian teams have been only too happy to throw at Waratahs supporters and any pre-season proclamations. Sometimes in the past it has been earned, sometimes it’s mockery, often it’s irony.
The Waratahs’ annual labelling as favourites follows the start of a new year like night follows day. It’s just a matter of how soon in the new year the label is applied.
For the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season, Australian fans might not have waited until 1 January to apply it.
The off-season additions of displaced Melbourne Rebels Andrew Kellaway, Taniela Tupou, Darby Lancaster, Rob Leota and Isaac Aedo Kailea – all of them current Wallabies – along with high-profile homecoming league recruit Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii added instant cache to an already Wallabies-laden NSW squad.
Of that group, only Suaalii and Kellaway were confirmed before the appointment of former ACT Brumbies and Leicester Tigers coach, Dan McKellar.
From there, Tupou was seen as the key piece of the puzzle, and his history with McKellar in Dave Rennie’s Australia squads was the element that helped that piece fall into place. It’s almost certain McKellar pitched the NSW rebuild to Tupou before his own appointment was confirmed, and the remaining Rebels quickly followed once Tupou agreed to make the move to Sydney.
“Our recruitment’s been good, really good. We’ve got depth across most positions,” McKellar told this writer in Bowral, after his side was held to a 36-36, six tries apiece, scoreline by the Brumbies in a trial match played in the magnificent surrounds of the NSW Southern Highlands.
“I’m really happy with the staff that we’ve put together and I needed good quality people around me. Coaching staff, S&C, medical staff have all come together well and done a good job. So it’s exciting what we can do, but we just need to be realistic and patient.”
Whilst we’re making change and there’s been great buy-in to the change, Rome wasn’t built in the day. That’s the reality.
Being realistic and patient was a consistent theme of McKellar’s during our chat, and he’s been singing from this song-sheet since he first walked through the doors at Waratahs HQ in Sydney’s eastern suburbs last year.
He knows all about the #FebruaryChampions tag and used to chuckle at it when he led the Brumbies. Probably used it himself. Now wearing Waratahs kit, he was quick to chuckle again when it was brought up in Bowral, but was also quick to get back on message when the question of expectation came.
“We weren’t where we wanted to be at the back-end of last season, and whilst we’re making change and there’s been great buy-in to the change, Rome wasn’t built in the day. That’s the reality.
“It was really good to get a hit-out and for the (Wallabies) players returning from the Spring Tour to get some game time on board and get them into our language, into our system. We’ll be better for it.”
Having taken over a rising ACT side when Stephen Larkham joined Michael Cheika’s Wallabies coaching team in 2018 and taken them to a string of finals including a Super Rugby AU title in the Covid-impacted 2020 season, McKellar has long been regarded a coach who delivers success, his single season with the Leicester Tigers notwithstanding.
I’ve never really done a rebuild as such, with the amount of people that have moved on. Everyone talks about the players we’ve signed, but we lost an enormous amount of talent as well.
The challenge of lifting a New South Wales team from a low point and returning them to the top echelons of Super Rugby was too good a prospect to refuse when his departure from England’s East Midlands giant was confirmed.
“I am excited and that’s why I jumped at this opportunity, because I just think we can really help Australian rugby by putting in place a program that allows for long-term success with the Waratahs,” McKellar explains.
“I’ve never really done a rebuild as such, with the amount of people that have moved on. Everyone talks about the players we’ve signed, but we lost an enormous amount of talent as well. I mean, your (Ned) Hanigans, your (Jed) Holloways, your (Lachie) Swintons. Dylan Pietsch, Will Harrison… there’s a lot of quality players that left.
“So that cohesion piece that (Gain Line Analytics founder) Benny Darwin talks about, he’s accurate and he’s right. You need to build that cohesion and that’ll come over time.”
McKellar notes the importance of having former Waratahs stalwart centre Tom Carter on board as Head of Athletic Performance, as well as bringing in Lockie McCaffrey for his first taste of coaching at Super Rugby level, to lead defence, and continuing his long-running partnership with Dan Palmer as set-piece coach.
All three provide an important link to past New South Wales teams.
“Everyone would look at ‘Palms’ and Lockie and think of them as Brumbies people, but they both started at the Waratahs,” McKellar says. “It was important that we kept that connection to the recent history of the Waratahs.
“Tom Carter’s been superb as well. Played 88 games for the Waratahs and loves the organisation and the jersey, and you can see that in how he works and goes about his business every day.”
The real coup might be bringing former England World Cup winner Mike Catt to Australia as his attack coach. McKellar had approached Catt last year about joining him at Leicester, as Catt’s time in the Ireland set-up was finishing, and had a second crack once he landed the Waratahs role.
“I’m really pleased to have ‘Catty’ on board, just with his experience and what I went through in Leicester without an attack coach,” McKellar said. “It’s good to have a quality attack coach who you can just trust to do his job well, but they’ve all been important appointments.”
“It’s good to have a quality attack coach who you can just trust to do his job well, but they’ve all been important appointments.”
Speaking to a couple of players, all were quick to mention Catt’s methods complementing McKellar’s forwards and set-piece-led philosophy. A deliberateness about their attacking shape, and where they want to attack from on the field, has them all excited about the imminent Super Rugby Pacific season.
And given McKellar’s long association with Brumbies head coach Larkham, it was unsurprising to see the two teams playing with very similar shape and intent.
Which brings us back to expectation. It’s there, whether the Waratahs like it or not.
A combination of very strong off-season recruitment, on and off the field, and the consolidation of five Australian teams into four for 2025 leaves everyone watching Super Rugby Pacific and waiting for the quartet to take significant strides.
Singing the team song for the first time, that’s what excites me the most. I’ve got the next week or so getting to know the words of that, to make sure I can belt it out with passion,
New South Wales sits at the top of the list. With Sydney confirmed as the host city for the 2027 Rugby World Cup final and a large chunk of games at every stage before it, there is a genuine feeling of Rugby Australia consolidating into the so-called heartlands of the game in Australia.
RA, with the Waratahs now under their control and administration, will be sweating on a strong start to the season. So too will NSW fans, all desperate for this to be the year they finally return to the final knockout weekends of the season, having finished bottom in 2024 – with just two wins out of 14 – and suffered quarter-final exits following sixth-place finishes in the two preceding years.
The pressure is building, and McKellar knows exactly what is coming.
“That happens wherever you are, you know what I mean? That happened when I was at the Brumbies as well,” he says. “If you’re sitting at the top of the table, the pressure is to stay there. If you’re sitting in fourth position, you want to get to second. If you’re sitting at the bottom, you certainly want to get off it. So, pressure will always come. It’s high performance, professional sport and that’s why we’re in it.”
With his first Waratahs pre-season now on the downhill run, McKellar is looking forward to one thing in particular come full-time in the ‘Tahs first SRP fixture – against the Highlanders in Sydney a week on Friday.
“Singing the team song for the first time, that’s what excites me the most,” he adds. “I’ve got the next week or so getting to know the words of that, to make sure I can belt it out with passion.”
Waratahs fans are already looking forward to that moment keenly.
