Leon MacDonald to join Western Force coaching set up

[jargan83]

seven months after abruptly leaving the All Blacks, Leon MacDonald is jumping ship to join the Western Force.

The Roar understands the former All Blacks star turned coach will join the Force as a consultant, where he will oversee the development of the coaches.

The appointment, expected to be confirmed in the coming days, comes six weeks after The Roar revealed that MacDonald had held conversations with the Force last year about joining on a Director of Rugby capacity.

At the time, sources told The Roar that it didn’t make sense for MacDonald to join. A few months on, those differences have seemingly been resolved.

Although it seems an odd destination for a rising coach, who previously was the head coach of the Blues before joining Scott Robertson’s All Blacks set up last year, MacDonald has a close relationship with Force general manager Chris Goodman. The pair previously worked together at the Crusaders and Tasman academies.

His appointment also comes after months of rumours linking him to both the Force and the Wallabies given his close relationship with outgoing Australian coach Joe Schmidt.

Indeed, Schmidt worked alongside MacDonald at the Blues ahead of the 2022 season. Later that year, the Blues made the Super Rugby final before Schmidt joined Ian Foster’s All Blacks coaching regime.

But even though Schmidt is without an attack coach heading into the Lions series and will depart the Wallabies after this year’s Rugby Championship, sources have told The Roar MacDonald isn’t in contention to succeed his former colleague.

While the sight of seeing MacDonald at the Force won’t necessarily shock New Zealand Rugby officials, his return to Super Rugby with an Australian side is an extraordinary development and yet another sign of the times where Kiwi coaches are craved.

But the timing is curious, with the Force sealing a stunning 46-45 first-up victory over Moana Pasifika in Perth last weekend.

How he shakes things up at the Force will be fascinating, too.

After all, MacDonald and Robertson cut ties last August after they failed to “click”.

“Just a little bit of philosophy on rugby, how it’s played,” Robertson explained the sudden breakup between he and MacDonald.

“We just didn’t click in different aspects.”

How he works with Simon Cron, who is in his third season of his three-year deal with the club and yet to steer them to a maiden finals campaign, will be interesting.

The Force travel to Canberra on Saturday to take on the Brumbies.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2025/02/1...ck-with-razor/

[Tazzmania]

CONFIRMED

The Western Force continues to build towards its vision to become a world class rugby club with the appointment of Leon MacDonald as the Club’s coaching consultant across all three programs.....

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[GIGS20]

I think this is a good move, not sure what his role is and what that means about the impact he'll have but he's a well credentialed bloke who knows his stuff.

[Tazzmania]

Excellent move

We have all been crying out for a pathway and development process for local coaches.

This is exactly what the Force have done, they have brought in someone to assist and help develop all their coaches.

Imagine how much this means to people like Jeremy Thrush, Jonno Lance, Chris Heiberg, James Stannard, Dylan Parsons, the Force High Perfomance team and Simon Cron's team, especially those that are just starting out on their coaching journey.

Also can you imagine the ladies team, the academy players, the U16's and U19's, the wider training squad and even the first team squad arriving at practice this morning and seeing Leon McDonald there to help their coaches learn to help them better.