IAN McGEECHAN believes banned former Harlequins boss Dean Richards deserves his nomination for a top European Rugby Cup award. McGeechan, last year’s British and Irish Lions head coach, was among a panel that put Richards’s name forward.
ERC will mark 15 years of its flagship competition by recognising its leading coaches and players, among other categories, later this season.
And Richards, who was coach of Leicester when they won successive Heineken Cups in 2001 and 2002, is on the coaches’ list alongside McGeechan, Warren Gatland, Declan Kidney and Guy Noves.
Ex-England number eight Richards is currently serving a three-year coaching suspension for orchestrating a fake blood injury – the so-called “Bloodgate” scandal – during Quins’ Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat against Leinster last April.
“That’s irrelevant in that we looked back over the last 15 years and came to decisions based purely on performance on the field,” McGeechan told the Daily Telegraph.
“Dean won back-to-back titles with Leicester and, quite rightly, his outstanding sequence of results means that he deserves to be on the list.”
The nominations for the players’ award are Lawrence Dallaglio, Rocky Elsom, Yannick Jauzion, Martin Johnson, Paul O’Connell, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Fabien Pelous and David Wallace.
Meanwhile, former Australia captain Stirling Mortlock will join Danny Cipriani and Gareth Delve at the Melbourne Rebels in next season’s expanded Super 15 competition.
Mortlock has turned down “significant overseas approaches” to sign a three-year deal with the Australian Rugby Union with a view to playing in a third World Cup, in New Zealand next year.
The 32-year-old centre is currently in his 13th season with the ACT Brumbies and is the leading points scorer in the history of Super Rugby.
Rebels head coach Rod Macqueen, who gave Mortlock his Test debut against Argentina 10 years ago, said: “Stirling is yet another addition to our growing team of players with strong leadership skills. The opportunity to play out his career in Melbourne, and not overseas, is great for both Australian rugby and Stirling as he helps us build the foundations of the new club.”
