Have Ireland missed trick with their new ticket?
Unproven Farrell will feel the heat from Leinster duo and Mark McCall
‘FARRELL WAS PREFERRED TO COACHES AT BEST TWO CLUBS IN EUROPE’
THIS year’s European Cup final is a celebration of Irish coaching. The two teams out on their own in the northern hemisphere are expected to produce a gripping decider next Saturday week.
Leinster and Saracens are led by Irishmen in Leo Cullen and Mark McCall, with Stuart Lancaster, reinvigorated by the Irish system, also crucial to the Irish province’s great run of success.
Were an ambitious club seeking to recruit management to plot a way to glory, the men in charge of Leinster and Saracens would be heading the list, well clear of everyone else.
One might have thought that would go for a country with serious designs on winning, too, but when the IRFU drew up their succession plans for a future without Joe Schmidt, they went for Andy Farrell, a distinguished assistant but who has little experience heading a management team.
The ramifications of Farrell’s appointment have received limited
attention, which is unsurprising.
News of Schmidt’s departure and Farrell’s elevation – contained in the same press release – was made public at the end of November, following a riotously successful autumn series and at a time of the year when the emphasis turns to reflection rather than penetrative scrutiny.
There was no press conference, no interviews, in keeping with a culture around the national team that places disproportionate interest in controlling coverage.
But Farrell’s qualifications for the job will have to be examined at some stage, and the successes enjoyed by McCall at Saracens, and the Cullen-Lancaster axis at Leinster, will increase the pressure on the chosen one: if he is preferred to the leadership teams at the two best clubs on this side of the world, then Irish fans are entitled to expect great things.
The process employed by the IRFU to replace Schmidt was not publicised, but all the indications suggest the preference for Farrell did not require looking beyond the distinguished defence coach.
‘This appointment provides certainty and continuity beyond RWC19 with Andy leading the coaching group through the next World Cup cycle to the 2023 tournament in France,’ Philip Browne said in the press release, with Schmidt commenting, ‘His (Farrell’s) ability to lead and his understanding of the game will ensure that the group will continue to move forward’.
That will be the expectation, but the alarming drop in standards endured by Ireland during the Six Nations has not only complicated Schmidt’s final months ahead of the tournament that will help shape his legacy, but it has also given a hint of the job Farrell will have replacing some of the leaders that inspired much of the joy of the past half-decade.
He may be a natural, and he might find ways of motivating and coaching that take this generation in a fresh new direction.
But the tangible, sustained success enjoyed by McCall and the Cullen-Lancaster union shows there were viable alternatives.
Maybe none of them were interested in trading immersion in the game every day for the more fractured routine Test coaches have to endure.
The small band of fans loyal to Saracens, and the much larger group that follow Leinster will simply be thankful that they remain at the head of their teams.
McCall’s story has been remarkable, given he left Ulster in 2008 as the memories of the Celtic League he led them to in 2006 faded and the province went through one of their regular upheavals.
That must have hurt a man who won 13 Ireland caps, and who was part of Ulster’s management in some capacity for almost nine seasons.
He has thrived since, leading Saracens to their four Premiership titles and the European Cup twice.
McCall used to be asked about coaching Ireland one day, suggestions that were never warmly received.
He does seem extremely happy at Saracens, and the job he has done there is, in its way, as impressive as the regeneration work carried out by Cullen and Lancaster in Dublin.
Sarries are loathed by their rivals, accused of breaching salary cap regulations and generally dismissed as rich bullies.
As they showed against Munster, though, they play with tremendous spirit and obvious unity.
Power and discipline are the foundations of their gameplan, and they look and sound a lot like the great Munster sides of a decade ago.
McCall is largely responsible for that, and motivation for the final, if any is required, will come in the form of last season’s quarter-final, when Leinster expertly picked their way past Sarries to an 11-point victory.
The coaching comparison is a fascinating feature of the final – and a reminder of the talent moulded by the Irish game.