The Waratahs are expected to release a wide-ranging review of the club next week, but don’t expect any heads on the chopping block.
Headed by former Canterbury Bulldogs CEO Dirk Melton, it appears the results will be more around process than any more major staff reshuffles.
The Waratahs have already brought in Norths and Australia U20s coach Simon Cron, to replace scrum coach Cam Blades.
The review began in July, and originally Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson said the results would be known by the end of that month.
Melton’s review involved interviewing staff and players, presenting those findings internally, before beginning on a wider examination of the club’s strategies and processes.
Gibson said the results of that would be released in coming weeks, forecasting more changes throughout the club
“As we transform and evolve ourselves, change is the name of the game at the moment and we're putting all those systems in place to ensure that we are where we should be,” he said.
“We're pretty complete there with our squad, probably only got one or two spots left to our maximum in our budget and cap and just looking at our staffing and so forth, making sure we've got our staff roster.”
The Waratahs announced the signing of Wallabies and Waratahs lock Rob Simmons on Thursday, moving a step closer to finalising that squad.
A prop and a centre are among the players yet to be added to the squad, though Gibson said they were reluctant to wait around for the Force’s fate before locking in their 2018 roster.
“Like all the other clubs, we're waiting on the decision around which club will eventually leave the competition,” he said.
“Until then, we're not going to wait around in terms of waiting for people. We're going to get on and start our planning and move forward.”
NSW has also locked in youngster Maclean Jones for another season, after the no. 8 moved down to Sydney in 2017 and made his Waratahs debut.
