David Waite

David Waite
Personal information
Born 1951
Playing information
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
Wests (Wollongong)
1974–75 Cronulla-Sutherland 20 27
1978 Wests (Sydney) 7 7
Total 27 0 0 0 34
Representative
Years Team Pld T G FG P
1973 Country Firsts 6 0
1973–74 New South Wales 5 0
1973–74 Australia 6 0
Coaching information
Club
Years Team Gms W D L W%
1991–94 Newcastle Knights
1996–98 St. George Dragons
1999–00 St. George Illawarra
Total 0 0 0 0
Representative
Years Team Gms W D L W%
2001–03 Great Britain

David Waite (born 1951 in New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league footballer 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

Club career

Waite was a Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs junior and played with their President's Cup side in 1969. The following season he played with Wests Wollongong in the Illawarra Rugby League competition. It was whilst playing for Wests Wollongong that he first represented for Country, NSW and Australia. He spent two seasons with the Cronulla-Sutherland 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.

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.

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.[1]

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 Rugby Football League.

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 Catalans Dragons in their inaugural season in the Super League. He returned to Australia at the end of the 2006 season.[2] In 1995 Waite coached South Australia in the National Championship

Nicknames

Grimace

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Waite surprised by sacking". AAp Sports News (Australia). 2000-05-31. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-26858954.html. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  2. ^ "Waite quits RFL post to go home". BBC News. 2006-09-04. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/5313462.stm. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 

External links

Preceded by
Allan McMahon
1988-1991
Coach
Newcastle Knights

1991-1994
Succeeded by
Malcolm "Mal" 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