Outgoing Wallabies coach Robbie Deans with Queensland coach Ewen McKenzie at Reds training at Ballymore in April Source:The Courier-Mail
McKenzie will take over the Wallabies’ reins for the opening Bledisloe Cup Test in Sydney on August 17 guide the team to the 2015 World Cup in England.
ARU chief executive Bill Pulver met with Robbie Deans today to inform him that his contract would be terminated with six months to run. His fate was sealed after the Wallabies' record 41-16 loss to the British and Irish Lions in Sydney last Saturday night.
McKenzie, long regarded as Deans’ logical successor after guiding the Reds to the Super Rugby title in 2011, has fended off a strong challenge from the Brumbies’ World Cup winning coach Jake White.
A former World Cup-winning Wallabies prop, McKenzie was a Test assistant coach under Rod Macqueen and Eddie Jones before embarking on a head coaching career with the NSW Waratahs in 2004.
McKenzie coached the Waratahs for five years, taking them to the Super Rugby final in 2005 and 2008.
After a stint with French club Stade Francais, McKenzie returned to Australia to coach the Reds and revived them after several years of languishing at the bottom end of the table.
There has been a strong push for McKenzie to replace Deans ever since the Wallabies' loss to the All Blacks in the semi-final of the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
Deans was the most successful coach in the history of Super Rugby, guiding the Christchurch-based Crusaders to five titles.
The ARU expected Deans to reproduce that success with the Wallabies, but he was unable to do so.
Deans, who became the most capped Wallabies coach in their Test against France in Paris last November, achieved some wonderful results, especially against South Africa. The Wallabies also won the Tri-Nations tournament in 2011 for the first time in 10 years.
But Deans' failure to win the Bledisloe Cup, the World Cup or the Lions series proved his undoing.
