Ex All Black captain eyeing Canterbury coaching role

Former All Blacks and Crusaders captain Reuben Thorne is keen to be part of Canterbury’s coaching staff for next season’s Mitre 10 Cup campaign. 

Canterbury have a potential vacancy in their coaching set-up after it was confirmed that their current head coach, Glenn Delaney, will leave the province after this year’s Mitre 10 Cup to join the Highlanders as an assistant coach.

Assistant coach Joe Maddock will be Canterbury’s head coach in 2018 and although he hasn’t named his assistants yet, there is a vacany and Thorne, who has been coaching Christ’s College in Christchurch for the past two seasons, admitted that he would be interested if a position on Canterbury’s coaching staff became available.

“If an opportunity came up, I would certainly consider it,” Thorne told Stuff.

“But to be honest, at the same time I’ve got a lot of other stuff on. So it would sort of have to fit in around everything else. It would depend very much on what the role is.”

Maddock is currently working as Canterbury’s back-line coach and is one of the Mitre 10 Cup champions’ three assistant coaches. Nathan Mauger is the team’s skills coach, while Mark Brown, who is a former Canterbury U19 coach, is in charge of the forwards.

Thorne, who played as a back-row for New Zealand, the Crusaders and Canterbury from 1996 to 2008 and who captain the All Blacks in 2002 and 2003, covers all aspects of the game with Christ’s College, but sees himself primarily as a forwards coach.

“I guess in due course they [Canterbury Rugby] will either advertise for someone or maybe Joe Maddock will have someone in mind and he might just go and shoulder-tap someone,” he said.