‘We can win it’: Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels reveals the journey from divided to united
They’ve lived for years with their very existence under threat. Rumours of internal division were rife. But here they are, in a first ever finals series. How Melbourne Rebels turned adversity and survival in to success.
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“We’re like the old uncle at the barbecue”, Melbourne coach Dave Wessels said.
“Everybody hopes we’ll leave, but we never do.”
And now the Rebels are preparing to boast to anyone who’ll listen about what they did in 2020.
In two games, they can win a premiership.
When all throughout 2020 and last year, the whispers were that they were on the chopping block. Rugby Australia would cut a team, and Melbourne was the obvious choice.
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Wessels heard the rumours, and was naturally wary.
After all, he’d heard the same in 2017 when he was in charge of the Western Force, and then told it was untrue.
Within weeks the rumours turned into an Australian rugby press conference where it was announced either the Force or Rebels would indeed be axed from Super Rugby.
The Rebels, who ended up with the wooden spoon, survived. The Force, who finished second in the Australian conference, were cut.
Wessels and a bunch of players were offered the chance to start over in Melbourne in 2018.
“For the few months before you had players who were competing against each other and fighting for survival, we had to first of all make the team look and feel like a team,” Wessels said.
“The change room was almost split in two when I arrived. We had the original guys who were sad to see some of their previous teammates go, and were anti some of the Force guys. And vice-versa, some of the Force guys were upset they had to leave Perth.
“So there was a division in the team. We worked very hard on to get the guys to become a team, and I’m proud we were able to do that.
“One of the early things we did, sitting in the change rooms, I asked the Rebels boys who’d been there the year before how they thought the Force players would be feeling. And I asked the Force guys, if you had been a Rebel last year, how are you feeling?
“All I was trying to do was create some empathy and awareness of the situation. In many ways it was the Rebels against the Force, but it was of neither club’s making.
“The two clubs fought very hard for survival. It’s funny, a couple of weeks ago when we were in Canberra, the Force played the Waratahs and our whole room cheered every time the Force scored.”
Rumours began circulating last season that the Rebels were on the chopping block, costing too much to sustain.
Those murmurs again surfaced in 2020.
Then, when New Zealand Rugby opened up “expressions of interest” for their proposed eight to 10-team competition for 2021, with room for only two to three Australian teams, it was strongly tipped that Melbourne would finally be axed, or forced to merge with the Brumbies.
However, new RA chairman Hamish McLennan put an end to that speculation, declaring no Australian teams would be cut, facing down the Kiwis and declaring: “We won’t shrink to greatness”.
It was a seminal moment for Rebels players and staff who’d all been hearing whispers of their demise.
“Because our players have been through that before, there’s a heightened sensitivity to that sort of discussion,” Wessels said.
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“It impacts recruitment and retention because there’s a huge uncertainty with where the franchise is at.
“But in reality, Melbourne’s about to be the biggest city in Australia in a few years’ time, it’s crazy to think the biggest city in Australia wouldn’t have a Super Rugby team.
“I’ve never thought we were getting cut, I think it’s low hanging fruit to talk about us because we’re the newest franchise, but I haven’t heard anything out of Rugby Australia to suggest it’s a possibility.”
To put aside the innuendo was one thing.
But to have made their first semi-final having not been home for three months — the Rebels were forced to relocate to Central Coast in June when Victoria shut its borders due to COVID-19 — is an exceptional achievement.
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Needing to win by four points to guarantee a playoff match against Queensland this Saturday, the Rebels scored a last-minute converted try against the Force last week to claim a thrilling 34-30 win.
“We’ve had to do everything away from home,” Wessels said.
“I’m really proud of the courage they’ve shown. We’ve been on tour since June, it’s a long time. We don’t have our own training field, we don’t have our own gym, we’ve been well looked after here but it’s different when you’re not sleeping in your own bed.
“We’re also quite aware that the people of Melbourne and Victoria are doing it a lot tougher than we are, especially in the last few days when the extension of the lockdown was announced, we’ve sensed a real stress from our families and people that are there.”
The Rebels will be playing for them at Suncorp Stadium.
Highlighting the bond that exists within the group, all Rebels players recently called a surprise meeting at their hotel, and gave each coach and staff member a gift — bottles of red wine — for the sacrifice they’ve made supporting the players this season.
So it must be rewarding to play their first ever finals match.
“I’m not satisfied to say we’re playing in our first finals match,” Wessels said. “I’m here to win it, and win the final after that. We can do it.
“And then I will open my bottle of wine.”
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Originally published as ‘We can win it’: Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels reveals the journey from divided to united