IAN’S BUDGET TRAVEL PAYS OFF
Ex-Munster coach Costello glad he has taken role at Nottingham after ‘difficult’ few years with the province
IAN COSTELLO didn’t leave anything to chance on his brief holiday visit home to Limerick, two red-eye St Stephen’s Day flights to different UK airports booked from Dublin for fear bad weather could stop him making his club Nottingham’s Championship meeting with Leeds that afternoon.
It’s been his commute – via Birmingham or East Midlands airports every 10 or so days – since summer, the ex-Munster defence/kicking coach jumping before being pushed out at the province. He has learned a lot as a first-time head coach in England’s unglamorous lower league and now wonders why it took him so long to make the leap.
Needs must with his current twocountry juggling: it was felt best his pregnant wife initially remained in Ireland due to complications in moving their physio-dependant threeyear-old son out of the Irish healthcare system.
Toing and froing was at first a drag. Costello would get to Dublin, hire a car and find himself tired and using precious family time to catch up on work. But he wised up, started using public transport to get to Limerick and have work finished before getting in the front door.
Now as father to a 13week-old daughter and having sussed out his young son’s medical situation – something he says shaped his life’s outlook the past few years and has been an inspiration – his family are poised to swop Ireland for England, Castletroy for West Bridgford, a thriving Nottingham suburb a stone’s throw from the rugby club’s base.
There will be a 4G pitch laid next summer to better suit their 15-man playing style, a 1,500-seater stand to replace two tiny temporary structures, and new dressing rooms in contrast to Costello’s first off-season where a team-building exercise consisted of the squad painting the existing old clubhouse.
It’s that sort of club, minding pennies in a league where London Welsh are the latest financial casualty. Nottingham learnt hard lessons some years ago, overreaching with a previous investor. Still, the long-term aim is to make the club an attractive investment, build a relationship with the local university, reach the Premiership and move games back to larger-capacity Notts County FC. Laying firm foundations is Costello’s current task with his squad of 27 fulltimers which includes ex-Munster trio Shane Buckley, Gearoid Lyons and Jordan Coghlan.
‘Players earn the equivalent of a good development contract in Ireland, but if a club offered £60k-£70k we wouldn’t be competitive. London Irish are a cut above everybody else. Then Leeds are just a little bit below but still a cut above the rest of the division,’ says Costello.
‘London Irish have a £5m budget, but most teams operate between £1.2m to £1.5m and we operate at under 50 per cent of that. The challenge is realistically not winning trophies, but what can we develop here. If we went up the next two years we wouldn’t survive, but in three or five years hopefully you can then stay up.
‘My job is putting solid, sustainable structures in to make us very competitive within significant limitations around finances,’ he says, adding he is upskilling all the while with visits to Leicester and Wasps as well as sharing with other local sports coaches.
Mid-table Nottingham’s long-haul punt on Costello appears good business, despite a 41-20 loss at Cornish Pirates yesterday. He is a successful sports scientist who reasoned long ago the best way to become a successful full-time rugby coach success was to accumulate a year’s salary in the bank for fear of a spell out of work in an industry with no guarantees.
Costello, Brian Walsh and Mick O’Driscoll all lost out as part of the unfulfilled all-indigenous Munster ticket where only Jerry Flannery remains two and a half years later, following head coach Anthony Foley’s tragic death in October.
‘You were part of a group and things didn’t work out,’ reflects Costello. ‘Everybody I worked with at Munster, the ongoing feedback from players and staff was you were doing a very good job...but I’d been with Munster for six years and was previously in the academy, so you start getting a narrow focus.
‘There was a lot of change coming and once we got word Rassie (Erasmus) was being appointed and he was closely associated with Jacques Nienaber, a fantastic defence coach, I would have, without being told, known the writing was on the wall.
‘The last few years were difficult in Munster. There was no getting away from that so to get away and experience something else was a big part of the rationale (in leaving for England). It was a huge move because you become part of a bubble but when I moved I was like, “Why didn’t I do this before, why had I waited so long?” It’s not a big deal at all.
‘I haven’t an ounce of negative thought about what happened. I’ve moved on. Delighted how well it has worked out so far and dying to get my family here. That’s the hard bit, going over and back. The only regret I have is we had an excellent coaching group at Munster and outside perception would be the indigenous coaching group failed.
‘Not through fault of our own. Everyone worked so hard. But I’m disappointed we couldn’t have been the flagship that made this (all-Irish setup) the norm in other provinces. People say, “Oh, we weren’t experienced”. I have been full-time for 10 years... but cosmetically it might have looked better if there was one outsider.
‘The last two years teaches rugby can’t consume you. You were going to bed with your stomach in knots, waking up with a pain. But the more I thought about it, if you have done everything you possibly can and people say your work ethic, integrity, honesty, the way you coach and prepare the team is top notch and there are no question marks, I can live with it. You’re not happy with it but you can live with it and that’s the template to move forward.
‘I struggled to knock off for a day or two, as did Axel who was under incredible pressure, and that is the environment in Munster. You walk down the street in Limerick, Clare, Cork and that’s the nature of it. You love it, but there were other times where you said this was extremely difficult.
‘I definitely haven’t mastered it but I’ve now taken up squash to do something else rather than be consumed with rugby. You’re more anonymous in Nottingham but I have a lot more responsibility for what I’m doing. I’m embracing and enjoying it and it has exceeded my expectations.’
Without being told, I’d have known the writing was on the wall