MELBOURNE hope to lock in Dave Wessels’ signature “in coming days” but they’ve got a shock new rival in the shape of Irish giants Munster.
We understand Munster are very keen on Wessels and have offered to fly him to Ireland next week in a bid to do a deal.
Munster’s head of rugby is fellow South African Rassie Erasmus, who gave Wessels his first assistant coach job at the Stormers in 2008.
Wessels’ Force troops - many of whom plan to go to Melbourne with him - have been lobbying their mentor to not get on the plane.
The Rebels have been targeting Wessels since Tony McGahan announced he was leaving the club in June, but they had to wait until the court battles resolved the Force’s future in Super Rugby one way or another.
Negotiations between Wessels and the Rebels are now steaming ahead and Bade Stephenson told us they hoped to have an outcome “in the next couple of days”.
“We are at the pointy end,” the Rebels CEO said.
Making life tricky still, however is Andrew Forrest’s newly announced IPRC plan. Wessels is loyal to WA and has been a superb leader in times of crisis for the club, and the rugby community, this year.
Given the investment of time and effort required at Super Rugby level, it’s unlikely Wessels could run both the Rebels and the Force in the same year but Stephenson said he’d be happy to talk with the 35-year-old about a continuing role in WA Rugby.
“Given the year the Force and Rugby WA have had and given Dave is clearly a respected and influential person over there, I would be open to a conversation about assisting in some sort of rugby in WA,” Stephenson said.
“But we’d need some clarity I guess and ultimately at this point no-one really knows what the comp is and what it be entail.
“That’s probably part of the challenge at the moment is for Dave and others to make a decision, working out exactly what the landscape is in regards to the Indo league.”
Stephenson said Wessels had “loyalty to Australian rugby” and informed sources say the South African - who has coached here since 2012 when Jake White brought him to the Brumbies - is keen to coach the Wallabies one day.
Many believe Wessels signing on with the Rebels will begin a wave of signings at the club of ex-Force players.
Stephenson said the Rebels had a number of “plan B” agreements with the Perth men and expected they would begin to formalise their moves soon, just as Ben Daley did on Wednesday.
