Brian "Billy" Melrose (born 9 May 1963) is an Australian professional

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

coach and former player who played as a fly half and inside centre. He was head coach of the Greater Sydney Rams for the inaugural season of Australia's

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

in 2014.

Family and early life

Brian Melrose grew up in Baulkham Hills in Sydney as the third of four brothers who all played first-grade rugby. His brother Tony Melrose is a former

Wallaby A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized Macropodidae, macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same Taxonomy (biology), taxon ...

who also played

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

for

Parramatta Parramatta (; ) is a suburb (Australia), suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River. It is co ...

, Souths, Easts, Manly and

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Rugby career

Melrose played as a fly-half or

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

in Sydney's club rugby competition for

, Western Suburbs (now West Harbour), and Eastwood in the 1980s and 1990s. He won the A.L. Vincent Trophy for the best and fairest player at Western Suburbs in 1994. Melrose played 240 first-grade games between 1982 and 1999, returning to his first club Parramatta, as first-grade captain-coach before retiring.

Coaching career

Melrose was appointed co-coach of the previously struggling West Harbour club in 2001 and improved immediately, with the team reaching the playoffs in 2001 and 2002. He was named the NSW Premier Rugby 'Coach of the Year' in 2002. Manly RUFC recruited Melrose as Head Coach for the 2003 season and again improved his team's position (from 10th in 2002) to reach the play-offs in 2003 and 2004. He undertook a coaching study tour of the UK before joining the

New South Wales Waratahs The New South Wales Waratahs ( or ;), often referred to as the Waratahs, are an Australian professional rugby union team based in Sydney that represents the majority of New South Wales in the Super Rugby Pacific competition. The Waratahs play t ...

as attack and kicking coach for the 2005 season. It was the Waratahs' most successful Super Rugby season, making the grand final for the first time and following that up with another finals appearance in 2006. Melrose was appointed Head Coach of the Western Sydney Rams for the inaugural

Australian Rugby Championship The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC and also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes, was a domestic professional men's rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for onl ...

in 2007. With the youngest team in Australia, the Rams were tipped to finish in the bottom two on the ladder but instead claimed the minor premiership with a thrilling brand of rugby under Melrose. He was Head Coach of the Australia under 20s team which finished fifth place at the

2008 IRB Junior World Championship The 2008 IRB Junior World Championship was the first annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams. All players who were twenty years of age or under on 1 January 2008 were eligible for selection. This competition repl ...

s, and Head Coach of Eastwood in 2009. Melrose left for Ireland in 2010 to take up a contract as assistant coach with

Connacht Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, C ...

in the

Pro12 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in ...

competition. He was recruited to

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club that most recently competed in the Premiership Rugby, Premiership, the top division of rugby union in England. The club also participated in the European Rugby Champions Cup, European Champion ...

in 2011. Returning to Australia in 2013, he worked on his building business and worked with

NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

club St George-Illawarra as a skills coach. The Greater Sydney Rams appointed Melrose as Head Coach for the 2014 season, renewing their association with the coach that took the Western Sydney Rams to the Minor Premiership in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melrose, Brian Living people Australian rugby union coaches Australian rugby union players Connacht Rugby non-playing staff Rugby union centres Rugby union fly-halves 1963 births Rugby union players from Sydney Parramatta Two Blues players Eastwood Rugby Club players 20th-century Australian sportsmen