Utah Warriors Move On From Head Coach Alf Daniels
Jun 18, 2019, 1:40 PM | Updated: 2:38 pm
Coach Alf Daniels talks with the players after the Utah Warriors rugby team practiced at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. (Scott Winterton, Deseret News)
(Scott Winterton, Deseret News)
HERRIMAN, Utah – The Utah Warriors, after a disappointing season, announced that they will not renew head coach Alf Daniels’ contract heading into the 2020 season.
Daniels was hired on as the head coach for the Warriors inaugural season in 2018, the New Zealand native was a coach and administrator for the Waikato Rugby Union before moving to Utah. Daniels oversaw the building of both the team roster and the infrastructure of the team from the ground up. The club went 4-8 their first season, finishing fourth place in the regular season and losing in the semi-finals to the MLR championship runners-up, the Glendale Raptors.
The 2019 season brought new challenges to the club with the league expanding, adding new games and the Utah Warriors losing team captain Paul Lasike and Tongan international Kurt Morath, as well as a auxiliary-coaching carousel and team drama. The Utah Warriors finished in eighth place in the regular season but missed the playoffs after an disappointing 2-2-12 finish.
Salt Lake City, UT—The Utah Warriors announced today that Head Coach Alf Daniels’ contract will not be renewed going into the 2020 season and that he has been released as Head Coach … More in articlehttps://t.co/XaaCuEc0ZC
— Utah Warriors (@warriorsrugbyut) June 18, 2019
An unnamed source with the club told sports.ksl.com, “The captain should be in tune of the way the ship is run.. [the club] didn’t feel like their captain was, so they let him go.”
Warriors president Kimball Kjar said he underestimated how hard things would be, that he knew that starting the club from scratch would be hard, but he didn’t know that it would be this hard. After exit interviews and talking with the team and staff, the front office decided to cut coach Daniels loose.
An emotional coach Daniels said “I’m gutted, disappointed.”
Congrats @Seawolves_Rugby on defending that shield! Great fight from both teams. The world was watching rugby at the professional level take shape in the USA!
— Utah Warriors (@warriorsrugbyut) June 16, 2019
Sources have also said that the team is in a budget crunch, some players claim to have not been paid yet from the first Utah Warriors season in the MLR. It is unknown the state of the league overall, but for small to mid market teams in a small league, budget constraints can be a harsh reality.
The Glendale Raptors are another team in the MLR rumored to be preparing for coaching changes as well.
