The former All Black captain was a controversial choice, again because he didn't live in Wellington.
But Mourie, at least, had played for the Wellington union in the mid-19070s, and with considerable effect before he left to dairy farm near Opunake. His rugby coaching, however, had been confined to a few seasons with the Coastal Club in Taranaki.
In fact when a phone call came from Wellington, Mourie had told his partner Shona he had finished his rugby coaching, and the previous year he had turned down an offer from Taranaki to take their coaching spot.
But he had also considered a lifestyle change, and the Wellington call did the trick. But Mourie says he received some advice not to go - especially from the late, much-loved Taranaki stalwart JJ Stewart.
"He said he thought it was a mistake to go to Wellington because of the history and culture, but I saw it as a challenge," Mourie said. "Certainly there had always been a lot of potential in Wellington."
What Stewart had seen, in culture and historical fact, were those challenges. So Mourie sat down with Wellington's CEO David White and went through the problems. Mourie was Wellington's first fulltime, paid coach. The pair came up with several main aims:
To coach the representative side to NPC glory.
"Perhaps some people saw it as optimistic, but we set the aim of winning the NPC within three years. And we achieved that."
Talent identification, recruitment and retention:
"If we were going to succeed in getting the team up and running quickly we would have to look at what local talent would be involved, and then be prepared to go outside. In the first year (1998) we looked locally, and then recruited.
"From that 1998 year, only Tana Umaga, Shane Carter, Jason O'Halloran, Alama Ieremia and Paul Steinmetz were still there the year we won it. But when you recruit you have to be pretty lucky to get top quality players - in our case we got Christian Cullen because Manawatu basically fell over, and Jonah (Lomu) decided he wanted to get out of Auckland.
"And Jonah, in the end, was pretty critical in us winning that NPC because he played so well in the final."
There were others. Players like Dion Waller, Brad Fleming, Englishman Kevin Yates, David Holwell, Kupu Vanisi, Jason Spice. It could be said that none of those had really cracked it in their previous unions.
"That fact brought its challenges," Mourie said. "But there was enough there to rebuild and we could have won that 1999 NPC final if the players had a little more self-belief. And that was one of the real issues to be overcome.
"The Wellington public and some sections of the media were very critical of the team when they didn't perform, so it was hard to establish a lot of self-belief. The players were used to things going wrong - so in that first year we had a couple of real disasters. But by the time we came to that third year I think we had conquered that."
Clearly a key to building player strength was the establishment of a player academy and getting the message through the country that Wellington had finally caught up with the other major unions.
"If Wellington was to have a sustainable team, we had to catch up with the game in terms of player development and set-up a decent recruitment, retention and development policy. The academy had probably been the most successful part of that."
Mourie picks out Filo Tiatia as an example of a player who did not reach his potential because of a lack of proper infra-structure and development organisation in the union previously.
"While he did make the All Blacks briefly, to me he was a guy of such huge potential if he had been given a proper training and technical development base, and assistance with the mental side of the game while he was a young player. He had huge, raw physical potential.
"If Filo could have been picked up at the same time as someone like Rodney (So'oialo) was, he could have been long-term star."
Mourie now looks with satisfaction on the number of representative players who have come out of the academy in its short history - All Blacks So'oialo, Jerry Collins and Ma'a Nonu, Hurricanes Riki Flutey, Shannon Paku, Ross Kennedy, Tim Fairbrother, and Wellington representatives like Thomas Waldrom and Kane Thompson. And there are players like Nemia Tialata and Tamati Ellison with huge futures, he says.
"The academy was a major part of what I wanted to leave behind, a system that worked. Previously Wellington had representation at secondary school level, but by the time they reached the under-21 stage these guys had disappeared. No it's different."
The other aim sorted out by White and Mourie?
There had to be a stronger relationship between the unions and the clubs.
"All of the clubs, in fact, not just the major two. The first thing I did was to establish a relationship with club coaches. I tried to get to one or two trainings with each club each year and talk to all the players - not just the coaches."
Mourie's feeling was that all clubs had something to offer, and he's pleased that in the past five years every club has been to at least a semi-final. That signifies a healthy club scene in his book.
Mourie stepped aside as coach in 2000 when he took over the Hurricanes from Frank Oliver. It was a move that happened before he feels he was really ready, but the chance was there and he decided to take it.
Dave Rennie took over the Wellington Lions and Mourie was allowed to be his "technical advisor" and continued taking the forwards. In fact there wasn't a lot of change, because they both insist it was a total partnership from the start. The union won the NPC in 2000 and just failed to grab the Ranfurly Shield from Canterbury in the 2001 season.
So overall, Mourie had a strong influence on Wellington's resurgence, even though he may be judged more on a couple of disappointing Hurricanes seasons. Such is life. He reflects: "Ideally I would have preferred three, four or five years with Wellington and then looked at coaching the Hurricanes. But that (Canes) came along. But I would have been better able to develop my own coaching at that level if I had stayed with Wellington."
Now he's a New Zealand Rugby Football Union board member, helping out anyone who needs a bit of coaching help.
"There are some huge challenges for New Zealand in making sure the game in 10 years will be able to provide for the future of New Zealand rugby. The game has to change as society changes."
Mourie certainly oversaw massive change in the Wellington Union in setting a base for the future. For that reason, his work was immensely important.