Highlanders job was hardly a Mauger decision
"The coaches at the moment have just come off the back of a season so they're winding down. I'm the other way. I'm getting excited already." Aaron Mauger
Newly minted Highlanders coach Aaron Mauger will probably never have an easier job interview in his life.
The 36-year-old former All Blacks midfielder was on Tuesday confirmed as the Dunedin-based franchise’s head coach for the next three years, replacing Japanbound Tony Brown.
Mauger’s appointment as the team’s 10th head coach shouldn’t come as a surprise, but perhaps the ease in which it came about will.
Rather than being grilled in front of chief executive Roger Clark and the board, Mauger was practically handed the job after a discussion with fellow candidate Mark Hammett and Clark.
‘‘It was a matter of the three of us getting in a room and talking about what was best for the Highlanders moving forward,’’ Clark told Stuff.
‘‘We always said we would work through a process together to determine who the head coach would be, and that’s what we’ve done. That discussion was a very easy one, really.’’
Mauger, who played 46 tests for the All Blacks and 89 Super games for the Crusaders, signed on as an assistant coach in May, about a month before long-time Highlanders assistant coach Scott Mcleod was confirmed as the All Blacks’ new defence coach.
Clark made it clear Brown’s replacement would be either Mauger or former Hurricanes and Sunwolves head coach Hammett, who has just finished his first year as the Highlanders’ forwards coach.
‘‘[Hammett] thought I was the guy to lead forward, as did Roger, so it was a bit of a collaborative conclusion, which helped. It was all pretty smooth,’’ Mauger said.
With Brown joining former Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph in Japan, 2018 will be the third consecutive year the franchise has gone into a season with a new head coach.
Mauger, who like Brown will be in charge of the team’s attack, doesn’t have a huge deal of head coaching experience.
After finishing his playing career with Leicester (53 caps) in 2010, he returned home to Christchurch and nabbed an assistant coaching job with Canterbury’s NPC team.
He went on to work as the Crusaders’ attack coach under Todd Blackadder between 2013-15, before finishing up after they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2001.
A difficult stint with English Premiership side Leicester followed, with Mauger losing his head coaching job in March, just two years into his three-year contract.
‘‘You’re always learning . . . it didn’t end in a great way but I’m pretty proud of how I left,’’ Mauger, who won the Anglo-welsh Cup but couldn’t guide the team past the pool stages of the European Championship Cup, said.
‘‘It came down to a different structure and the club wanted to move forward. Unfortunately, I fell out of that structure, but they’re all experiences you learn from and you can be better from going forward. I didn’t see it as a failure, I just saw it as a learning opportunity.’’
Landing on his feet in Dunedin means Mauger takes over a franchise which won Super Rugby two years ago, and has made the playoffs four years running.
He will be assisted by Hammett, performance manager Jon Preston and assistant forwards coach Clarke Dermody. The Highlanders plan to appoint a new defence coach by the end of August.
‘‘The coaches at the moment have just come off the back of a season so they’re winding down. I’m the other way. I’m getting excited already,’’ Mauger said.
His first official day in the job isn’t until September 1, although he will be involved with the ongoing 2017 season review, and the appointment of a new defence coach.
Mauger’s wife Amy and four children - Felix, 12, Zoe, 10, Ivy, 5, and Hugo, 4, - will move from Christchurch to Dunedin at the end of the year.
While some Highlanders fans might be shaking their head knowing Mauger and Hammett are both Cantabrians, Clark said it was never an issue.
‘‘It’s just the way of the professional world, all of us down here are from somewhere else, pretty much. That’s always the way Otago has been, really.
‘‘When I appointed Jamie Joseph at the end of 2010, it was a real issue. We did have an identity crisis within the team, but that was for a whole lot of reasons and Jamie came in, along with the rest of the club, and have done a really good job of creating a culture and environment which is very much the southern way.’’