Tuesday’s rugby news has the Tahs going without a CEO, the Sevens without a coach, Fiji closing the door on World Cup applications and England moving down the rankings.
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Harris leaves Tahs
The Waratahs will have to find their third CEO in seven months after Greg Harris announced that he will not apply for an extension to his contract which expires on December 31. Harris took over from Jason Allen in February, having previously headed Australia’s rugby players’ union RUPA. It was thought that the restructure of the Waratahs and NSW Rugby caused much conflict between the entities and predicated Harris’ decision to leave.
“My decision is not really a resignation but a decision not to seek a renewal of the agreement, which has been superseded anyway by the decision of the Waratahs and NSWRU Boards to restructure and go to market for a new CEO role.” he said.
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Sevens left coachless
Geraint John has quit as coach of Australia’s Sevens team barely a year out from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. John, who had served as the Sevens director and head coach since June 2014, resigned to take up a new position with the WRU as the leader of elite coach development.
“We have the right structure in place to ensure this won’t negatively impact either the men’s or women’s players or the programme in general,”ARU general manager Ben Whitaker said. Australia finished fifth in the sevens world series, missing out on automatic qualification for the top four teams.
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Fiji deny Naiyaravo
Waratahs winger Taqele Naiyaravoro will miss the Rugby World Cup next month after Fiji coach John McKee ruled out giving him a last-minute call-up. McKee said he would consider selecting Fiji-born Naiyaravoro down the track but would not disrupt planning for next month’s event in England to accommodate him.
Naiyaravoro was left out of Australia’s 31-man squad named last week after confirming he was joining Celtic League champions Glasgow Warriors. “Just because Taqele was effectively not available for us in this World Cup, doesn’t mean we won’t select him for the future… (but) I’m very happy with the wings we’ve named,” McKee said.
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England drop to 5th
England have dropped to fifth in the latest World Rugby Rankings after their 25-20 defeat to France in Paris on Saturday. With one match to go before the start of Rugby World Cup 2015, the hosts have fallen below South Africa following and now in danger of going into the tournament ranked lower than Pool A rivals Wales.
Stuart Lancaster’s men are now just 1.3 points ahead of sixth-placed Wales, who travel to Dublin to play Ireland on Saturday. England conclude their RWC 2015 warm-up campaign against the Irish the following weekend, while Australia are currently in third place.
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