‘Nationality of coach not important’ – Matt Toomua

David Skippers

Playmaker Matt Toomua believes the nationality of the Wallabies head coach is not as important as his ability to bring success to the team.

Much has been said that the new Wallabies head coach Dave Rennie hails from New Zealand, with no Australian considered to take over the position as Michael Cheika’s replacement.

But Toomua played it down and said the players regard talk about the nationality of the coach as “white noise”.

“We just want the best coach,” he told AAP.

“We want to be successful because that’s what inspires Australians to play the game: being successful.

“Obviously having the luxury of traditional Australian representative people at the top there would be good in some sense, but I think Australians will get behind a successful Wallaby team. How we do that is probably not as important.”

Rennie follows in Robbie Deans’ footsteps as only the second foreigner – and New Zealander – to coach the Wallabies and he is the first coach of Polynesian heritage to be in charge of the team.

Toomua feels Rennie’s appointment was reflective of Australian society – and the national team itself.

“Even just the make-up of the team itself; a lot of guys may not have been born in Australia but have been adopted and it’s probably a fair reflection of society at the moment, that team,” he said.

“Yeah, we have all been coached by coaches of different nationalities but we all speak rugby and that’s the main thing.”

Toomua said he hadn’t spoken to Rennie since he was appointed as the new Wallabies coach last week.

He did say, however, that he hadn’t had great experiences playing against teams coached by Rennie.

“I played against teams that he coached early on – was on the losing side in the Australian U20 World Cup final and then the Super Rugby final, so hopefully he can help us win one,” added Toomua.