Morgan Turinui steps down as Club Coach

Aside from being our part-time Club Coach since 2020, Morgan is an exceptionally busy man juggling his full time role as General Manager at the Classic Wallabies, a burgeoning media commentary career on Stan Sports, which sees him in France at the World Cup for the next two months, plus most importantly managing his family commitments with his wife Alissa and their four teenage children.

Clearly, something had to give in his insanely busy schedule and unfortunately it was his part-time Club Coach role with us. In good news Morgan, will remain on the Club Board, so he will still be involved, but in a more limited capacity next year.

Morgan was a major contributor to our rise back to the top, culminating in the Galloping Greens winning the Shute Shield and the Club Championship, both for the first time in 20 years. Plus, with 3rd & 4th Grade winning premierships, Grand Final day 2023 went down as one of the great days in Randwick Rugby history.

We wish Morgan all the best in the future and sincerely thank him for all his efforts with us over the past four seasons as our Club Coach.

Today we also announce that our Colts and Pathways Program Manager James Tesoriero will be leaving the club at the end of the month, after 3 years running our Colts area. James is a really dedicated individual and while our Colts teams didn’t enjoy the premiership success of our Grade cohort this year, they all made semi-finals and this contribution lead by James, was pivotal in helping us secure the Club Championship for the first time since 2003.

Like Morgan, we wish James every success in his future endeavours and sincerely thank him for all his efforts since returning to our club in 2021.

With these departures from our coaching ranks, it gave the club an opportunity to strategically review our current rugby program structure, to ensure that our incredible success this season is sustainable into the future. Therefore, the board has decided to recruit a full-time Director of Rugby to drive coaching and player development, rugby administration processes, recruitment, pathway programs and pastoral care activities across both our Grade and Colts programs.

The new Director of Rugby will work closely with our First Grade and Top Squad Coach Stephen Hoiles and we will now go to market to find the best qualified candidate for our club, to commence prior to the pre-season beginning.

We all saw first-hand this year with Stephen’s appointment, what brilliant results can be generated by having a full-time resource in place at the very top end our rugby program, so having another one in the mix should enhance our prospects further.

The Club also intends to recruit more team specific coaching resources in our Colts program to support this approach, which again more closely replicates our grade model. We will keep you updated as these appointments are made.