The Australian Rugby Union have appointed former Wallabies player Rod Kafer to a new role where he will lead the facilitation of Australia’s elite coach development program.

The role, part of Australia’s high-performance department, will allow Kafer to balance the new job along with his existing TV commentary commitments.

It’s expected Kafer will work with Australia’s coaching staff for the Wallabies, Wallaroos, Sevens and at Super Rugby level. He will also coordinate the national coaching advisory panel, which was announced in May.

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Kafer had a 12-year playing career, spending five of them with the Brumbies where he made 37 appearances while scoring 50 points. He was a part of the inaugural Brumbies team in 1996 before moving to England in 2001 where he spent two years with the Leicester Tigers to finish his career.

The playmaker made his Wallabies debut in 1999, earning 12 caps before he made the move north.

Kafer said he was looking forward to the challenge of his new role at the ARU.

“As most know, we currently have many important priorities we need to address to improve the game. Our challenge is to ignore all of them and only focus on the critical few priorities that will lead to long-term success and improve our prospects of winning consistently, at every level,” said Kafer.

“Coaching is a critical priority that we must improve, at all levels. We must ensure that best practice at the elite end of the game flows to all coaches and players from the top to the bottom. That is a sure path to improvement and a critical investment in the game’s future.

“Every player and coach has a part to play in developing future Wallabies, Wallaroos and Olympians, and the more resources we provide to improve those players the better our future will be. We have already started on it and I can’t wait to see where we get to.”



The ARU’s general manager of high performance, Ben Whittaker, sung the praises for Kafer in his new role.

“Rod is a fantastic acquisition into Australian Rugby and has shown a genuine willingness to be involved in shaping the way forward to achieve on-field success across our programs,” said Whittaker.

“Rod’s rugby intelligence is well known and he is one of the most respected voices in the game. He will be able to work with our elite coaches to identify opportunities for important learning and development.

“This is an area of High Performance that has been collectively prioritised and we have been able to design a model for it to be delivered via a centralised system.”