Irish Coaches

As we know in Ireland all we have in terms of home grown coaches in charge of any of the four provinces is Anthony Foley who has taken over as head coach at Munster on a two year deal.  Other Irish coaches are making names for themselves outside of Ireland. In the Premiership you have Mark Mc Call in charge at Saracens , Conor O Shea in charge at Harlequins and now Gloucester have appointed David Humphries to take over from Nigel Davies.

Munster have taken a massive step to give Irish coaches a real chance to prove themselves at the highest level by appointing an all Irish coaching team. Coming in alongside Foley are Jerry Flannery as scrum coach and Brian Walsh as backs coach. This is a massive chance for two young coaches , Flannery has spent some time with Arsenal as a strength and conditioning coach and Walsh has been head coach at Ulster Bank League side Cork Con. They have both finally been given major roles. Ian Costello has also been retained as skills coach so after many years of looking to outside coaches an Irish province has gone all Irish.

In Pro 2 in France, Biarritz have given Eddie O Sullivan the task of rebuilding the once mighty Biarritz back into Top 14 contenders. He will only be given one season to return Biarritz to the Top 14. That is how cut throat the leagues in France are be that the Pro 2 or the Top 14.

In the Premiership as we know Irish coaches have had a major impact both Conor O Shea and Mark Mc Call have kept both Saracens and Harlequins at the top since taking over from Brendan Venter and Dean Richards respectively. Harlequins of course have come back from the bloodgate fiasco of 2009 in a Heineken Cup quarter final against Leinster.

Bernard Jackman ex Connacht and Leinster hooker has taken over at Grenoble and guided them to a mid table finish in their first season in the Top 14. They qualified for the European Rugby Challenge Cup where they are in Pool 1. So we have seen that while these home grown coaches may not get a chance to shine at home they have all gone to pastures new and achieved big things with other clubs.

To be fair to the IRFU and the Munster Branch they didn’t look to far from home to replace Rob Penney and promoted Anthony Foley to what could still be considered one of the biggest jobs in club rugby.

Now that David Humphries has gone from Ulster to Gloucester to take on that head coach job it again goes to show that we produce top quality coaches that do go on to achieve big things with other clubs

Who knows if Anthony Foley works out as a head coach and returns Munster to winning trophies the IRFU along with the Branches of Ulster, Leinster and Connacht may promote from within to fill the big jobs into the future.

By

Cian Mc Gibney

16/06/2014.