{"id":196625,"date":"2025-10-08T02:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/196625\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T02:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:24:11","slug":"former-new-zealand-u20s-assistant-coach-joins-western-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/196625\/","title":{"rendered":"Former New Zealand U20s assistant coach joins Western Force"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former New Zealand<\/a> U20s assistant coach Craig Dunlea will head to Perth later this month after signing with the Western Force<\/a> for the new Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> season. With this appointment, the Force have completed the team\u2019s coaching group ahead of the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n

Dunlea joins the Force\u2019s coaching staff along with defence coach Brad Harris, assistant coach James Stannard, and head coach Simon Cron. The former prop has spent the last four NPC seasons with Canterbury, looking after the forwards scrum and ball-into-contact areas.<\/p>\n

New Zealand have also competed at the last two U20 World Championships with Dunlea as an assistant coach, focusing on scrums as a specialist. With Dunlea among the coaching ranks, the New Zealanders finished second at the 2025 event.<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Am on returning Boks<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Dunlea\u2019s coaching journey started with Mid-Canterbury<\/a> Heartland in 2012-2017, before taking up opportunities with Lincoln University as an assistant coach, and the Junior Crusaders<\/a> forwards coach in 2020.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Dunlea served as the Crusaders B forwards coach and the Canterbury scrum coach in the NPC. Dunlea would take up roles as the Crusaders U20 forwards coach and Crusaders Academy forwards coach the following year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to get Craig on board, the feedback from players and staff that have worked with him is he\u2019s very detailed which is important for us,\u201d Force coach Cron said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of young, developing props and we want to provide them with as much opportunity to develop as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has cut his teeth working for four years in the NPC with Canterbury and two years with the New Zealand U20s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a really good operator at lineout time and he\u2019ll work well with our key lineout leaders and continue on from Sas (Tom Donnelly) with the development there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Force missed out on the Super Rugby playoffs in 2025, finishing ninth. They had started the season with back-to-back wins, sitting inside the top six at one stage along with the other three Australian teams.<\/p>\n

In the all-new Super Rugby AUS, the Force continued to show signs of improvement, hosting the Grand Final in Wanneroo. While they were beaten by the NSW Waratahs<\/a> 33-26, backrower Vaiolini Ekuasi<\/a> and fly-half Max Burey<\/a> were among the tournament standouts.<\/p>\n

Dunlea joins a Force side that features a mix of rising stars and established Wallabies. This will be Dunlea\u2019s first role with a Super Rugby side, and the assistant coach can\u2019t wait \u2013 set to head west after Canterbury\u2019s NPC season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited about the opportunity,\u201d Dunlea explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the conversations I had with Crono and Goody, I can feel their enthusiasm about the franchise and where it\u2019s going. From afar, you can see the positive trajectory the squad is going and now it\u2019s about taking that to the next level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the challenge of Super Rugby and to working with the players and staff to keep building on the strong foundations already in place and drive the Force to new heights.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coaching philosophy is built around the love and enjoyment of rugby, along with a focus on hard work and the technical side of set-piece and installing domination among our forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a personal side, I\u2019ve never been to Perth but have only heard good things about the city, so I cannot wait to get over there and get into it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former New Zealand U20s assistant coach Craig Dunlea will head to Perth later this month after signing with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-196625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}