Who will fill Dan McKellar's coaching void at Brumbies HQ?

These are just some of the options on the table as the Brumbies cast a worldwide net to replace outgoing coach Dan McKellar, before he joins the Wallabies in a full-time capacity following the 2022 Super Rugby season.

Brumbies bosses hope to have a shortlist of potential candidates drawn up by mid-September - and there is no shortage of contenders.

Among them are the likes of former Brumbies assistant Peter Hewat, a club great in Stephen Larkham, sought-after Kiwi Simon Cron, and a pair from left-field in Steve Hansen and Michael Cheika.

"While it will be tough to see Dan complete his time with us at the end of next season, it is helpful that he has made this decision now to allow us time to plan for the future," Brumbies chief Phil Thomson said.

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"Dan and the team's focus is solely on the 2022 Super Rugby season, but we will now begin the recruitment process to replace Dan together with ensuring that we maintain a good level of continuity in our staff group for 2023 and beyond."

The timing may well be perfect. Hewat served three years as Dan McKellar's assistant before joining Ricoh Black Rams in Japan this season as the side's attack coach on a two-year deal.

The 43-year-old made the decision to leave Canberra and put his family first when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the goalposts significantly in Australian rugby.

But Hewat said at the time of his departure "we'd love to come back [to the Brumbies] at some stage", and he would return as a known entity to most of the playing group.

He was seen by many as the NSW Waratahs' saviour only for the club to miss out on his signature twice.

Cron had been flagged as a potential successor to Daryl Gibson before leaving the Waratahs in 2019 to take up a head coaching job with Toyota Verblitz in Japan under Steve Hansen as the club's director of rugby.

Cron's exit from Australian rugby was seen as a cruel blow given his success at Shute Shield level with Northern Suburbs and a stint as the Junior Wallabies mentor.

The Waratahs had moved to lure him back to Sydney to replace Rob Penney this year, but found themselves the victims of poor timing after Cron re-signed in Japan.

The return of the prodigal son? The former Brumbies star turned coach is contracted to Munster until June 2022, opening the door for a return to Canberra following the end of the Super Rugby season.

Larkham needs no introduction to Australian rugby fans, having crafted a remarkable legacy as a player with the Brumbies and Wallabies before moving into the coaching ranks.

He spent four seasons as Brumbies coach - one alongside Laurie Fisher - before moving into Wallabies camp as backs coach under Cheika, where he was ultimately made a scapegoat for a run of poor results and packed his bags for Ireland.

One of rugby union's most influential figures, Hansen lost just 10 matches from 107 at the helm of the All Blacks, led New Zealand to a World Cup triumph in 2015 and continued a reign of trans-Tasman supremacy until stepping down in 2019.

He has served as the director of rugby at Toyota Verblitz alongside Cron, and Hansen has been dabbling rugby league as a high performance consultant with the Canterbury Bulldogs as part of the club's desperate bid to return to winning ways.

The former Waratahs mastermind is perhaps an unlikely candidate so soon after his time at the helm of the Wallabies.

"It's maybe a little bit too fresh, raw and also from a national point of view, they don't need me in that space probably at this point. They need some clean air, Wallaby coaches, without the name from the last four or five years," Cheika said earlier this year when asked about the Waratahs job.

Now Lebanon's rugby league coach, Cheika steered the Waratahs to their maiden Super Rugby title in 2014 and boasts a 50 per cent win record from 68 games at Test level with Australia.

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