David Waite
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| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | David Waite | |
| Date of birth | 1951 | |
| Youth clubs | ||
| Years | Club | |
| Western Suburbs, Wollongong[1] | ||
| Senior clubs* | ||
| Years | Club | Apps (points) |
| 1974–1975 1978 |
Cronulla Sharks Western Suburbs Magpies |
20 (27) 7 |
| Representative teams | ||
| 1973 1973–1974 1973–1974 |
Country Firsts New South Wales Australia |
6 (0) 5 (0) 6 (0) |
| Professional clubs coached | ||
| 1991–1994 1996–1998 1999–2000 |
Newcastle Knights St. George Dragons St. George Illawarra Dragons |
|
| Representative teams coached | ||
| 1984–1986 2001–2003 |
Australian Schoolboys Great Britain |
|
|
* Professional club appearances and points |
||
David Waite (born 1951 in New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league player and coach. He has also coached Great Britain in the Rugby League Tri-Nations.
Waite holds a British passport, courtesy of his father being born in Leicester.
Contents |
[edit] Club career
Waite was a Canterbury Bulldogs junior and played with their President's Cup side in 1969. The followings season he played with Wests Wollongong in the Illawarra competition. It was whilst playing for Wests Wollongong that he first represented for Country, NSW and Australia. He spent two seasons with the Cronulla Sharks in 1974 and 1975. Injury forced him into premature retirement in 1976 but in 1978 he was coaxed to make a comeback by his former coach Warren Ryan and returned to the Western Suburbs Magpies for a few games in 1978 before retiring again and taking up coaching.
[edit] Representative career
Waite was a Country and New South Wales representative in 1973 before being selected for international representation as a winger in 1973. He played in two Tests of the Ashes tour of Great Britain and two Tests against France. In 1974 he took part in two Tests in the Ashes series in Australia.
He scored three tries in the Kangaroos versus Rest of The World match in early 1974 but broke his jaw that season and missed the early representative games. He returned to the Test team for the opening match of the Ashes series but was dropped following Australia's 16-11 second Test loss.
[edit] Coaching career
In 1984 he was appointed coach of the Australian Schoolboys team. A position as coach of Canterbury under 23s followed from 1985 to 1987 and he was then Newcastle reserve grade coach from 1988 to 1991.
Waite's first first-grade coaching job was for Newcastle, succeeding Allan McMahon in 1991. He joined St George in 1996 and went on to guide them to the 1996 Grand Final against great odds and again coached St.George to the 1999 Grand Final. To Waite's surprise, in May 2000 it was announced that he would not be retained as coach for 2001. Instead, the St. George Illawarra board favoured Waite's co-coach, Andrew Farrar for the position. [2]
He was reportedly offered the job of New Zealand coach in 2000 but instead moved to Britain to work as a coaching co-ordinator in 2000 for the RFL.
In February 2001, he was appointed head coach and technical director of the Great Britain rugby league side. Waite stepped down from this role in 2003.
During 2006 he worked behind the scenes with Catalan Dragons in their inaugural season in the Super League. He returned to Australia at the end of the 2006 season.[3]
| Preceded by Allan McMahon 1988-1991 |
Coach Newcastle Knights 1991-1994 |
Succeeded by Malcolm Reilly 1995-1998 |
| Preceded by Brian Smith 1991-1995 |
Coach St. George Dragons 1996-1998 |
Succeeded by team formed joint venture with Illawarra |
| Preceded by team formed as joint venture between St George and Illawarra |
Coach St George Illawarra Dragons 1999-2000 |
Succeeded by Andrew Farrar 2000-2002 |
