Welshman Geraint John on Monday quit as coach of Australia's rugby sevens team, barely a year out from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

John, who had served as the sevens director and head coach since June 2014, resigned due to personal reasons and will return to Britain at the end of the month.

"While obviously we are sad to lose Geraint, we respect his decision entirely," ARU general manager Ben Whitaker said.

"We do, however, have the right structure in place to ensure this won't negatively impact either the men's or women's players or the programme in general."

Women's sevens coach Tim Walsh will take over John's role in an interim capacity, with a search under way for a permanent replacement.

Under John, Australia won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and finished fifth in Sevens World Series that concluded in May.

The men's team will in November play in a regional qualifying tournament for next year's Olympics after just missing out on the automatic places awarded to the top four in the World Series.
Source: AFP