These lads have great intellect so you have to know your stuff to get your point across
Lancaster returns home revived and validated by his Leinster experience
STUART LANCASTER has never seemed like man in need of reassurance. When he first became known to an Irish audience as England’s head coach, he was distinguished by a positive and optimistic attitude that left him vulnerable to parody.
And since his re-emergence after a year out of the game following his departure as England’s head coach, the old Lancaster has been discernible. This is no bad thing. In a sporting climate with a thriving population of egos careening out of control, integrity like Lancaster’s is a precious feature.
He is now over 14 months at Leinster, an initial one-year contract swiftly replaced by a new two-year agreement before the end of last season.
If he had doubted himself following his defenestration as England’s chief in the aftermath of the 2015 World Cup, the impact he has made at Leinster should have revived him. And while there is no evidence of Lancaster needing external validation since joining at the start of last season, it has come nonetheless.
One of the earliest public comments from within the group is still the most memorable, because it came from Leinster’s most influential player.
It was after they had beaten Montpellier on a 57-3 scoreline in the RDS last January, a result that confirmed them as the first qualifiers for the knock-out rounds of the European Cup.
‘Stuart has had a great influence on us and the whole organisation and it is a great place to be again,’ said Johnny Sexton in the aftermath of the rout.
With that comment, Sexton shared with the world what had been apparent for weeks beforehand to him and his teammates: they had at their disposal a highclass coach with the ability and personality to transform the players and their environment. If Leo Cullen should be credited for welcoming such a powerful figure into his management team, most of the credit for how this relationship has worked is due to Lancaster. When his England tenure ended in disaster at that home World Cup two years ago, the condemnation was on such a scale that the good work he had achieved was wiped away.
England finished second in each of his four Six Nations campaigns, while his time in charge also included a handsome victory at Twickenham over New Zealand.
That there was substance to his England operation is reflected, too, in the way his defence coach during those years, Andy Farrell, has thrived with Ireland.
Today brings Lancaster back to England. Rugby in that country is buoyant under Eddie Jones, but the return of Lancaster will still pique interest over there.
‘I’ll typically do my best to stay out of the way, to be honest,’ he says in anticipation of today’s visit to Sandy Park. It is the tie of the weekend, pitching England’s best team against a side with a persuasive claim on the status of the Pro14’s best.
‘I see my job as getting the team ready this week and handing over to the players and letting them look after game day, which is the way it should be really.
‘I never really think it should be about coaches anyway. This is a case in point, where you’ve got Exeter at the top of their game, playing at home against a Leinster team which will be pretty good in terms of competitiveness.
‘The other thing is you’ve got another game to come the following week back at the Aviva, six-day turnaround. (Last year) was my first experience of that back-toback uniqueness.
‘In the lead up to the Northampton home game last year, I remember showing the Leinster boys clips of a game they played at Northampton (in December 2013), when they absolutely tore them apart, and then lost at the Aviva the following week. It’s a unique challenge, this two-game thing. The less it’s about me, the better, as far as I’m concerned.’
That match in Lansdowne Road in six days’ time tantalises as the ideal ramp into the festivities for Leinster supporters, but an evening of Christmas jumpers and bonhomie in the stands is contingent upon what happens in the south-west corner of England this afternoon.
Lancaster and the rest of the Leinster party are pitting themselves against the reigning Premiership champions and a force currently leading that grinding league by eight points.
Exeter’s story is one of the most optimistic in British sport, that of a team that moved from semi-professionalism to England’s mightiest in two decades.
Central to that story is the man who played with the club for 14 years and has been their director of rugby for the past eight and a half years. Rob Baxter is regularly touted as a future England head coach. When he occupied that role, Lancaster once took Baxter (left) on a summer tour of Argentina as one of his assistants. His understanding of Exeter wends all the way back to the amateur days, though, to when he was playing and then coaching Leeds Tykes, and they were treading the path Exeter would eventually follow all the way to the top.
‘He’s a bit like me in that he came through the amateur game where we trained Tuesdays and Thursdays and played Saturday, had a few beers Saturday night, and I think he’s kept a lot of that alive, that sort of amateur ethos in the club,’ says Lancaster of Baxter.
‘You can see he’s got a very big group of players and he keeps them all happy and it’s a very enjoyable place to be. You can see from the way they celebrate tries, and the tightness of the group, and any players who I coached who played for Exeter when I was with England would always talk positively about the environment and the club which is obviously a good statement about the culture he’s created.
‘Then you layer in identity and the crowd’s connection and it makes a powerful combination.’
Victory for Leinster today would be a decisive statement from this generation. They have the richest playing resources in the Pro14 league, thanks to their outstanding academy and the talent Lancaster is now helping to nurse towards the elite level.
Were they to visit the lair of England’s mightiest and win, it would broadcast their European ambitions
You must be clear in your philosophy to sell it to the players
the way a famous win at the Stoop against Harlequins did in 2009. The input of Lancaster is critical at what really does present itself as a hinge moment for this squad. ‘One of the things that I have benefited from coming to Leinster is dealing with senior players who have been around for 10 years – Johnny, Cian Healy, Rob Kearney,’ he says, ‘and they have been coached by some great coaches along the way – Michael Cheika, Joe Schmidt, Matt O’Connor or whoever, a catalogue of quality coaches. ‘They have this really deep-seated knowledge of the game, great intellects. You’ve got to know your stuff, to put your point of view across but also accept the fact that sometimes they’ve got the answer as well.
‘That’s ultimately what you should be striving towards as a coach, that you and the players are working together. So sometimes, yeah, I might say something and they’ll say, “what about this?” And I’m happy to concede.
‘On the flipside, I think it’s very important as a coach that you are clear in your own philosophy, your own beliefs, and it’s up to you to sell it to them.’
In the season of splurge, there are no more eager consumers than the Leinster players. They want what Lancaster’s got.