McKellar seeing progress at Waratahs despite Super Rugby exit

UPDATED Jun 01, 2025, 03:54 PM

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New South Wales Waratahs head coach Dan McKellar is confident his team is moving in the right direction despite missing out on the Super Rugby Pacific playoffs following their 46-6 loss to the Auckland Blues at Eden Park on Saturday.

McKellar's side needed to win against the defending champions to sneak into the top six places in the standings and earn a berth in next week's championship rounds, but the Blues prevailed with wing Rieko Ioane scoring a hat trick of tries.

The result leaves the Waratahs in eighth place in the 11-team competition and seven points adrift of the playoff spots as the squad missed out on the post-season action for the second year in a row.

"There's always pressure and there's been progress," said McKellar, who took over from Darren Coleman ahead of the current campaign. "We've won six games this year, but we wanted to win more. The progress is in the daily detail.

"We understand we represent a very big organisation, and a very proud one, and we want to get us back to the top group within the competition.

"But it's going to take time and changing daily habits and how things have been done for a long time and we're getting there."

The road back to the Super Rugby summit remains a long one for a Waratahs side that finished with little more than half the total points of table-toppers the Waikato Chiefs and having conceded 134 more points than they scored.

McKellar, however, plans to give his players a week to recover from the season before starting preparations for his team's next fixture, against the touring British and Irish Lions at Sydney Football Stadium on July 5.

"That's obviously a massive game and something for us to look forward to and get excited about, the boys will be dead keen for that," he said.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity as a rugby player and as a coach. We're really grateful to be involved in such an event and we'll get up for that." REUTERS

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