Former Ireland and Ulster coach Less Kiss has returned to Ausatralia, where he has been appointed as head coach of the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby.
Kiss has agreed a three-year deal with his native Queensland, replacing Brad Thorn, who stepped down at the end of the Super Rugby Pacific season after six years in charge.
At London Irish since 2018, Kiss was left looking for a new job after the debt-ridden Exiles were thrown out of the Premiership last month for failing to pay their players and prove they had a financially viable future.
Working alongside Declan Kidney, Kiss helped London Irish to a fifth place finish in last season's Premiership, their highest finish since 2009, despite their financial troubles.
The Reds finished eighth in 12-team Super Rugby Pacific this season, losing in the quarter-finals after barely scraping into the playoffs with a 5-9 losing record.
"It was an attractive option. The opportunity to return home to Queensland and coach at a successful club in a new world-class facility at Ballymore was something which appealed to me greatly," Kiss said in a statement.
"The Reds have an exciting roster which I am really looking forward to working with."
As well as working with Kidney at London Irish (below), Kiss previously served as assistant to both he and Joe Schmidt at Ireland, helping them win two Six Nations titles, before moving on to become head coach at Ulster between 2015 and 2018.
Meanwhile, teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina will compete in a new Under-20 Rugby Championship from 2024, the governing body of southern hemisphere rugby, SANZAAR, announced on Thursday.
The annual tournament, set to serve as a springboard for young players hoping to break into senior teams, will be hosted by one country in a round-robin format, with each team playing the others once over three weeks.
The 2024 tournament is scheduled to take place in April on the Gold Coast in Australia.
The lack of an annual southern hemisphere competition was thrown into focus during the recent World Rugby U20 Championship, where three of the four semi-final places were taken by Six Nations sides.
Hosts South Africa finished third overall, and speaking after their semi-final defeat to Ireland their head coach Bafana Nhleko said the Six Nations sides were becoming far better prepared than their southern hemisphere counterparts.
"Ireland were good value for their win - we need to be fair to them. But one of the things that we've constantly been talking about is certain teams are just better at playing under pressure situations because they're exposed to those pressure situations," he said.
"I spoke to the [Ireland] coach, 26 of the 30 that are here played in the Six Nations Grand Slam-winning team. Some of the guys that are here were playing last year in the Summer Series, I think about half of their group. So you can just imagine that they've almost had ten or 12 international matches together, it does help them in certain situations."
Additional reporting: Reuters
