Loyalty forced Wessels to Rebels

New Rebels coach Dave Wessels says he opted for the Melbourne outfit over European offers because of a sense of loyalty to Australian rugby.

And it is that commitment to the local game that means the South African is happy to be touted as a future Wallabies coach, rather than a Springboks boss.

Wessels was the coach of the ill-fated Western Force last season. Now 12 of those players find themselves in Melbourne, as do Wessels and several assistant coaches.

For Wessels, Melbourne felt like the natural fit after everything the Force endured in 2017.

“We were lucky enough to have some options to go to different places,” Wessels said.

“But we love living in Australia. I certainly wouldn’t be a Super Rugby coach had I not moved to Australia and I’ve got a lot of people in Australian rugby to thank for that.

“I just thought, without wanting to sound over the top, I felt a lot of people had been loyal to us through this process.

“I didn’t want to feel like I was leaving them high and dry when the time came.

“I felt like they’d stuck by us through the difficult time and that it was the right thing to stick by them and the wider community of Australian rugby.”

Wessels, 35, is the youngest coach of any side in Australia’s four football codes and he arguably has the toughest job of them all this year as he tries to bring together two playing groups.

“I’ve been lucky in that I didn’t waste my time in the first couple of years of my adult life playing, because I was so terrible,” he said.

“So I’ve been coaching since I was about 18 and coaching in Super Rugby since about 26. I’ve been lucky that I’ve kind of grown in to it in a way.”