Nick Mallett discards speculations about position at Rugby Football Union
Former Springbok and Italian coach Nick Mallett has ruled out all the speculations that linked him with the new generated post at RFU or performance director of England. He strongly insisted that he would like to go on with his current position and is happy
with it. Mallett hopes that he get a new deal from his current club to continue what he has been doing.
Streamlining of England’s Rugby Football Union has resulted into the creation of a new position for performance director. Media and sports analyst had no other name in their mind but Nick Mallett, so everyone started reviewing this possible development and
posted their speculations, until today when Mallett himself denied all these rumours and showed his interest in the current club.
Mallett has been coaching Italy for past three years and with his current deal at death's door after this world cup, the springbok is looking forward to sign another contract until the next world cup.
Nick Vivian Howard Mallett is an English born former South African rugby union player and a coach now. He replaced Pierre Berbizier in 2007 as the first South African coach for Italian national team. He has also coached his own national rugby team Springboks.
The 54 year old coach started his coaching career in 1985 for Saint Claude and Rugby Rovigo and since then has coached teams like, False Bay Rugby Club,
Boland Cavaliers, South Africa, Stade Francais and now Italy till now. He has served as both assistant coach and head coach for Springbok from 1996 to 2000. His career as a professional rugby player started in 1977, when he joined Western Province and Oxford
University. Mallett made his debut for Springboks in 1984 and officially resigned from his career as a player in 1992. Mallett appeared in both rugby league and rugby union as number eight.
Talking about Six Nations 2011 he told the reporters on Wednesday, “I love this job and I'd like to stay on after the World Cup, though that is up to the Italian Rugby Federation.”
He stressed on the fact that all these assumptions regarding him taking the RFU post were mere rumours and added, “The performance director role with the RFU is not a job I'd get a lot of pleasure from. I love coaching, getting out there and working with
players and I'm not so interested in sitting on committees.”
The post created by John Steele the new chief executive of RFU was meant to be a positive step. Steele had spent his first five months researching and coming up with a new system. He has split the elite rugby management in to two different departments. This
means that Martin Johnson the English coach will be directly reporting to the person who takes the seat of performance director. John Steele has been in the news frequently since December and has been witnessed to have talks with Sir Clive Woodward the 2003
World Cup winning coach. He is now the most popular choice amongst the media for the post. Sir Clive Woodward is servicing British Olympic Association currently.
But as far as the future of Italy and Mallett is concerned, it will be decided after this Six Nations. Mallett said, “When I had discussions with the President [Giancarlo Dondi] in November I wasn't sure what I would be doing after the World Cup therefore
they contacted some coaches to find out what their positions would be after the World Cup. I then spoke to him over the phone 10 days ago and nothing has been signed with anyone and we'll have more discussions after the Six Nations.”
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