Bringing back the fear factor
How Paul O’connell in the backroom team could change Ireland’s rugby prospects
IHAVE a fascination with Pablo Escobar, the former Colombian drug baron who met a grisly end in Medellin in 1993. To run a business as efficiently as he did, the currency he traded in was fear. Plata o plomo was his punchline when it came to co-operation with adversaries or stubborn government employees — silver or lead.
Fear is one of the great imperatives.
Since November 2019, the Irish management had a decision to make in terms of what sort of atmosphere they conducted their business in. Fun or fear? Not exactly plata o plomo, but the head coach chose to introduce some levity.
The squad had become a little punch drunk with Joe Schmidt’s restrictive and prescriptive modus operandi. We have all heard at this stage what happened on Monday morning at the video sessions — even when you played well.
Lest we are in any doubt — when it comes to pointing a team of twenty-somethings in the right direction, hard-nosed b******s just get better results. Alex Ferguson and Bill Belichick ruled with an iron fist — fun, well, that was for toddlers.
All of Schmidt’s coaches were micro-managed, which meant they were relentlessly grilled on what they were doing in their particular field, and if it didn’t meet with Schmidt’s approval then there would have to be a change of emphasis.
It’s hard, sometimes, to be coached when you are a coach.
So it is a little bit more relaxed now, and that suits the players and it sits easy with the new management.
I have always felt it is much easier to perform when there is an edge or even some disagreeable tension permeating within the team environment.
How much does performance drop off when that edge goes? Say 10%. A 10% drop is the difference between being happy to keep Scotland and Wales at bay but never really being in a position to consistently challenge England and France. That is the evidence that we have garnered from the 2020 Six Nations and the Autumn Nations Cup.
Yeah, we are good enough to keep the Celts at bay, but Fabien Galthie and Eddie Jones are too smart and have much better personnel.
That’s a dangerous twilight zone to inhabit. It only becomes clear when sides like Australia, South Africa and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand come over here and regularly get duffed. That is not going to happen anymore.
Somebody has recognised that and implemented a change. Prevention, as they say, is better than the cure.
David Nucifora recognised early on how light the backroom team were when Schmidt left. Staying ahead of Scotland and Wales is bad for business, and so a change was required.
The announcement of Paul O’connell was made last week. His appointment was a far from simple process. Apparently, Farrell wanted Graham Rowntree co-opted onto the ticket.
That would have presented a number of problems. Picking another one of your old mates after an average season would not have been a smart move.
Munster, who have begun to make progress with noted contributions from Stephen Larkham and Rowntree, would not have been too happy either.
Rowntree’s role in Munster is as forwards coach. What would his advent have meant to John Fogarty and Simon Easterby?
The decision was made that to hire England’s entire backroom staff from their failed 2015 World Cup campaign would not sit right, particularly when the guy you really want to hire is Stuart Lancaster.
Much has been said about O’connell’s exemplar personality and what he can bring.
The first point to be observed is that he was not the head coach’s first choice. That may or may not be awkward.
The second issue here is Easterby did a good job as the forwards coach. No one questioned his contribution. He is, however, one of Joe’s guys, and if I was the forwards coach and somebody of O’connell’s quality came in and his title was forwards coach, I would see the move to defence coach as a serious demotion.
In terms of activity on the pitch, 70% of the game is based on activities the forwards get involved in.
O’connell’s responsibilities will be huge. He is in charge of the lineout and has taken over the breakdown from Fogarty.
He will also have to undertake matters in relation to restarts, mauling and who carries the ball and how. O’connell is now the de facto coach of the team whether he realises that or not.
One of Schmidt’s key areas of focus was the breakdown. The Headmaster got his teams to clear out dynamically and intelligently. This season, well, Ireland’s scrum-halves looked like someone forking a caterpillar out of their salad. Technique and aggression is everything.
Was that particular job given to O’connell or did he ask for it?
There are only about 15 scrums a match on a dry day at Test level. Scrum coaches are a necessary luxury/evil.
What about O’connell’s forte — the lineout? In an age when the very best lineout ball you can get is the trick pass to your loosehead prop at the front, and the ball is gone to the out-half before anyone has time to blink, what science and technology can the Munster man bring? Just win the ball.
It’s quite simple — if you have 15 lineouts per game and you lose three, it is a disaster. If you win all of them, it is brilliant.
In the Autumn Nations Cup we were completely flummoxed by Maro Itoje and Joe Launchbury, both at 6ft 5in and England’s only jumpers.
If O’connell gets all areas under his command working efficiently, Ireland may just become competitive again. Will the rest of the coaching ticket step up?
Ireland’s coaching ticket are well compensated with Mike Catt on around €300k and Farrell on nearly twice that.
O’connell starts on around €175k — not huge for a forwards coach in Test rugby in today’s money, but today’s money is going to be ratcheted down.
What does the head coach do for his wedge? He has no real hands-on responsibilities left. He must now oversee what his coaching team are doing, and that is always the most interesting part of a fit when a forwards coach who really knows his stuff sits down for his first meeting with his head coach to determine what sort of a game the forwards are planning. Are you asking or telling?
A very unsubtle change has occurred here. You could never consider Catt, Easterby, Fogarty, Richie Murphy or Rowntree as a head coach but most certainly you could for O’connell.
By O’connell’s very introduction there is an edge back in the camp. Not one forward will allow himself to underperform now. A little bit of fear never did anyone any harm.