By Canadian Press

Steve Meehan, Canada new men’s rugby coach, honed his skills at clubs round the globe

Dec 24, 2024 | 9:09 AM

Steve Meehan acknowledges his own rugby playing career “wasn’t too flash.”

An injury in his first year out of school caused his shoulder to repeatedly pop out of place. “It brought a bit of a sudden halt to things,” he said.

The Australian had already started coaching, however.

His local club only went up to the under-12 level and a group of under-14 players at his school, Marist College Ashgrove, wanted to keep playing. The club told them they could if they found coaches, so they approached Meehan and a few friends.

“We started coaching this team and it just sort of continued to roll from there,” he said. “And then once I was injured, I just took a greater liking to it, I suppose. It was a great way to stay involved in the game. Because you missed the dressing room. You missed that camaraderie, all the enjoyment that goes with that.”

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Meehan’s coaching career has since taken him to France, England, Japan and now Canada.

The 58-year-old has been put in charge of the 23rd-ranked Canadian men, succeeding Kingsley Jones who stepped down earlier this month after seven years on the job.

“It’s very attractive. It’s a great challenge,” Meehan said from his Brisbane home. “And it’s an opportunity to come in and have a look at the game in Canada maybe through a different set of eyes.”

While Meehan has yet to set foot in the country, it’s actually his second job in Canada. In October 2023, he was named coach of the Toronto Arrows.

“His coaching record speaks for itself in terms of his success across top leagues in both hemispheres, but what rang true strongly during the interview process was his innovative approach to the game, his passion for his players and his desire to help grow the sport in Canada,” Tim Matthews, Arrows vice-president and GM, said at the time.

After taking the Arrows job, Meehan says he was “well and truly down the path of planning” from afar. And then a month later he got a call telling him “Unfortunately, it’s all off.”

The Major League Rugby club had folded after the sudden death of co-founder Bill Webb.

“I never got across to Toronto. I never got to meet the players face to face. It’s a real shame. I was really looking forward to that,” Meehan said.

But the Toronto job prompted him to watch a lot of Canada games as well as its opposition. And he sees opportunities.

“The reality is we’ve got to be beating the sides that are in and around us initially so that we can start climbing the rankings again and try and get this team back into that World Cup obviously … And it’s not just about this team, frankly. What’s really interesting is the possibility of having an impact or some influence in Canadian rugby, in terms of how should we be going about the development of players and coaches,” he said.

While the Arrows players have moved on, Meehan will get to meet more than a few as national team coach. And he pledges to “turn every stone we possibly can to try and find the best possible squad that’s available for Canada.”

Meehan plans to be in Canada early in the New Year, officially starting in April, and will be based out of Rugby Canada’s home base of Langford B.C. Wife Beth will be joining him in Canada, with their 28-year-old son visiting.

With World Cup qualification starting later in the year at the Pacific Nations Cup, he will look to hit the ground running.

Meehan has a wealth of experience.

He was an assistant coach under Nick Mallett and Fabien Galthié at Stade Francais in Paris from 2004 to 2006, helping the club reach the Top 14 final three years running with wins in 2003 and 2004. One of his players there was Canada captain Mike James.

Meehan then joined England’s Bath where he was elevated to head coach and led the club to three consecutive premiership semifinals and the 2008 European Challenge Cup.

Meehan left Bath in 2011 and returned to Australia, serving as attack coach for Western Force — joining former Bath coach Michael Foley — and then the Queensland Reds.

In 2015 he went to France to join Bernard Laporte’s staff at European champion Toulon as backs coach. Japan was his next stop with the Kintetsu Liners Rugby, from 2017 to 2019, before returning to Australia to rejoin the Western Force for an eight-month stint as defence coach.

A potential return to Stade Francais didn’t pan out and when the pandemic hit, Australia essentially closed its borders. A coaching job in Italy also went by the boards, as a result.

“it’s been a bumpy ride, from that point of view, recently,” he said.

He found other challenges.

“There’s opportunities to learn from all of this things,” he said.

From 2020 to ’23, he was director of rugby for Brisbane Boys College. He also served as director of rugby at the GPS Rugby Club, a local amateur side. More recently he also worked as QLD (Queensland) Health in a non-rugby role as leader of an IT team.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2024

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press