Richard Graham (born 5 August 1972) is a

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 head coach of the Australian

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

franchises, the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team based in Brisbane for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union ...

and

Western Force The Western Force is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia, currently competing in Super Rugby, Super Rugby Pacific. They previously played in Super Rugby from 2006 until they were axed from the competitio ...

Early life

Richard Graham was born in central western Queensland ( Charleville). He also lived in (

Miles The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English f ...

), ( Mitchell), (

Hughenden Hughenden may refer to: *Hughenden, Queensland, a town in Australia * Hughenden, Alberta, a village in central Alberta, Canada *Hughenden Valley, a village in Buckinghamshire, England *Hughenden Manor, a mansion in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Eng ...

), (

Longreach Longreach is a rural town and locality in the Longreach Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Longreach Regional Council, which was established in 2008 as a merger of the former Longreach, Ilfracombe, and I ...

) and (

Rockhampton Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. In the , the population of Rockhampton was 79,293. A common nickname for Rockhampton is "Rocky", and the demonym of Rockhampton is Rockhamptonite. The Scottish- ...

). He attended

Marist College Ashgrove Marist College Ashgrove (abbreviated as MCA) is an Independent school, independent Roman Catholicism in Australia, Roman Catholic Day school, day and Boarding school, boarding primary school, primary and secondary school, secondary school for Sin ...

as a boarding student and was a talented schoolboy sportsman. Graham played 1st XI Cricket, captained 1st XV Rugby and captained the school athletics team. In his final year at school, Graham won the TAS 110m hurdles. Former Wallabies

Daniel Herbert Daniel Herbert (born 6 February 1974) is an Australian rugby union administrator and former player who was appointed as the chair of Rugby Australia in November 2023. As a player, he played as a centre and won 67 caps for the Australia national ...

, Graeme Bond and

Pat Howard Patrick William Howard (born 14 November 1973) is an ex-head coach at Leicester Tigers and a former Australian rugby union international who played centre or fly-half. He was the General Manager, Team Performance – for the Australia nationa ...

were part of Graham's 1st XV in 1990. Graham played for the undefeated Australian Schoolboys Rugby Union team that toured Europe in 1990/91 with the likes of Matt Burke, Peter Jorgensen,

Jacob Rauluni Jacob Rauluni (born 25 June 1972) is a former International Rugby Union player who comes from a family of international halfbacks. His father, Taito, played halfback for Fiji, as did his brother Mosese and his first cousin Waisale Serevi, who al ...

and

Scott Bowen Scott Bowen (born 20 September 1972) is an Australian former rugby union player. He played in the position of fly-half and represented the Wallabies nine times between 1993 and 1996.Australian Rugby – The Game and the Players (Jack Pollard Syd ...

Playing career

Richard Graham played a year of Colts rugby at the

GPS Rugby GPS Rugby Club, colloquially known as Jeeps, is an Australian rugby union club based at Ashgrove in Brisbane that plays in the Queensland Premier Rugby competition. GPS also participates in the Brisbane Grades and Colts competitions, and in th ...

Club and was awarded the Queensland Colt of the Year in 1991. The following year saw Graham suffer a badly broken leg and subsequently a number of seasons away from the game. In 1995 he changed clubs and began playing for the

Easts RFC Easts may refer to: *Sydney Roosters, an Australian rugby league football team in the NRL, formerly known as "Eastern Suburbs" or "Easts" for short. *Eastern Suburbs Tigers, an Australian rugby league football club *Eastern Suburbs AFC, a New Zeala ...

in Brisbane winning the 1997 Brisbane premiership and also the 1999 Brisbane premiership as captain. He made his debut for the

against Hong Kong in 1998 and in 2001 played for Australia A against the touring

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England national rugby union team, England, Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland, Scotland national rugby union team, Scotland, and ...

. It was as a Rugby 7s player however that Graham was best known. He played for and captained the Australian

Rugby 7s Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

team between 1998 and 2002, his teams won 5 IRB series events and he attended 2

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

– 1998 (Kuala Lumpur) and 2002 (Manchester). In 1998 the team won a bronze medal beating Samoa in the 3rd and 4th play off.

Coaching career

Richard Graham began his professional coaching career with the Bath RFC in the English Premiership under former Wallaby hooker Michael Foley. In his 4 seasons with the club, he also worked under John Connolly (former Wallaby coach) and Brian Ashton (former England coach). Graham then moved to the Saracens RFC, where he worked under Alan Gaffney (former assistant Wallaby and Ireland coach) and Eddie Jones (former Wallaby coach) before finishing as head coach in 2009. In June 2009 Graham joined

Robbie Deans Robert Maxwell Deans (born 4 September 1959) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player, currently the head coach of Japanese club Saitama Wild Knights. He was head coach of the Australian national team between 2008 and 2013. Deans prev ...

as skills coach of the National team. While in this role he also accepted a position of assistant coach to former All Blacks coach John Mitchell at the

. When Mitchell unexpectedly joined the Lions in Johannesburg in September 2010 Graham was promoted to head coach a year earlier than anticipated. On 16 April 2012 Graham was sacked as coach of the

after he announced he would be joining the

Reds Reds may refer to: General * Red (political adjective), supporters of Communism or socialism * ''Reds'' (film), a 1981 American film starring and directed by Warren Beatty * Reds (January Uprising), a faction of the Polish insurrectionists duri ...

to become head coach in 2013. After two games into the

2016 Super Rugby season The 2016 Super Rugby season was the 21st season of Super Rugby and the first season featuring an expanded 18-team format. It was also the first season that teams outside Australia, New Zealand and South Africa featured, with the Jaguares from Ar ...

Graham and the

parted ways.Queensland Reds coach Richard Graham sacked after back-to-back losses to start Super Rugby season
Sydney Morning Herald. 7 March 2016 In June 2016 Richard Graham was appointed coaching coordinator for the

Georgia Rugby Union The Georgian Rugby Union (GRU) ( ka, საქართველოს რაგბის კავშირი) is the governing body for the sport of rugby union in the nation of Georgia (country), Georgia. History Founded in 1964, it was par ...

national side.

Education

Following his schooling at Marist College, Richard Graham completed a Bachelor of Education degree. He has also completed a Diploma of Financial Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Leadership. He is currently completing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) through the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Richard Living people 1972 births Queensland University of Technology alumni Australian rugby union players Australian rugby union coaches Australia international rugby sevens players Male rugby sevens players Rugby sevens players at the 1998 Commonwealth Games Rugby sevens players at the 2002 Commonwealth Games Western Force coaches Commonwealth Games bronze medallists in rugby sevens Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for Australia Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players for Australia Medallists at the 1998 Commonwealth Games Sportspeople from Charleville, Queensland People educated at Marist College Ashgrove Brisbane Tigers players GPS Rugby players World Games medalists in rugby sevens World Games silver medalists for Australia Medalists at the 2001 World Games Queensland Reds players