Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie and chief executive Fraser Neill are in favour of a new push to get rugby league great Andrew Johns into the NSW No.10 jersey.

A business consortium calling itself the Friends of the Waratahs is understood to be working on a financial plan to secure the pivot for next season, and while McKenzie and Neill claim to be largely in the dark about the proposed deal both confirmed a renewed interest in Johns.

McKenzie said he only knew what he'd read in the papers but the former Wallabies prop was happy to revisit the issue after the NSW Rugby Union and the Australian Rugby Union fell out over signing Johns last month.

"I'm definitely interested," McKenzie said of Johns at the launch of the second stage of the Sydney grade rugby competition, the Tooheys New Cup.

"He's a player of fantastic renown and skill and that has been acknowledged by both codes."

McKenzie called Johns' signing "hypothetical" but said if NSW went down that path it didn't mean another showdown with the ARU which had recommended not to sign the 30-year-old who has had two injury-plagued rugby league seasons.

"Obviously, we would have to work closely with the ARU in anything we do...but I think we could sort things out," he said.

Neill claimed the situation had never actually "died" saying the Waratahs' failure to sign Queenslander Julian Huxley for the troubling five eighth role had changed the landscape.

"I don't know that it was knocked on the head," he said.

"I think the ARU made their position pretty clear from their risk profile - they had their position but we had our position."

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