McGahan’s driving Rebels on his return Down Under
ronment, just getting a new group together. We’re really building from the bottom and we changed pretty much the whole rugby programme that was there. Strength and conditioning, analysis and certainly the rugby aspect of it.
‘We’re starting new to a large extent, that has been really exciting. You don’t get many opportunities to look at so many different aspects of a club. To come in here right at the bottom has been fantastic.’
Four wins in a dozen matches is seen as encouraging, particularly as they are above the Reds in the Australian conference, while getting a second player into the 32-man Wallaby squad for next month’s series against France, other than the established Scott Higginbotham, is another small but positive step.
Aussie strength-and-conditioning expert Bryce Cavanagh was also tempted to enlist from Munster. So too Eoin Toolan, who had been an IRFU performance analyst.
But while McGahan would love to bring in some prominent Irish players to further bolster the credibility of his transformation at the Rebels, he can’t see it materialising.
‘We’d love to have Irish players,’ he enthuses. ‘Every Super franchise would look at that but the set up they have over there, the Heineken Cup is such a wonderful competition because you get that diversity in playing outside the Celtic nations,