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Former World Cup-winning skipper Nick Farr-Jones has warned the Australian Rugby Union not to appoint New Zealander Robbie Deans as coach of the Wallabies.
"Sitting in the dressing shed with five minutes to go before a test with a Kiwi coach doing the revving up ... I don't think so,"
Farr-Jones, Australia's victorious captain at the 1991 World Cup, told a lunch audience in Brisbane on Friday, the Adelatide Advertiser reported.
"I'm very nervous on this as a possible direction. It wouldn't be Australian."
Current coach John Connolly will step down after the World Cup in France this year.
Farr-Jones said the risk of tinkering with the very fabric of Wallabies' culture was too great to pursue Deans, despite the success enjoyed by the Canterbury Crusaders mentor.
ARU chief executive John O'Neill has said Deans was a viable contender along with leading Australian candidates such as David Nucifora, Laurie Fisher, Ewen McKenzie and Scott Johnson.
Farr-Jones said Deans was "a great guy with an unblemished pedigree" as a coach.
"But, this country has so many chief executives in so many areas of expertise, you can't tell me there isn't an Australian rugby coach out there."
- NZPA
