Getting to know the new coach
PR: So you have spent a fortnight in Nelson now, what are your first impressions of the region?
RA: Nelson is an absolutely lovely town. The scenery with the snow covered mountain tops is just magnificent. I’ll admit there’s still a lot of Nelson that I need to see and explore but so far, without question, it’s a beautiful town.
PR: Your first coaching experience came when you were just a youngster, why did you turn your attention to coaching so early on?
RA: When I first started showing an interest in football my dad made the decision that he would do whatever he can to give me the best possible opportunity to get some success in it. He started his coaching badges back in England and it was when my brother started showing an interest in playing that my dad decided to take his team. It just transpired that I would get up early on a Saturday morning for my training and would hang around for my brother’s training and it kind of just organically progressed into coaching. They had some goalkeepers and I can’t remember whether my dad suggested it or whether I just had nothing to do, but I ended up taking the goalkeepers who were under-11 at the time. As I started I thought well if I’m going to do it then I’m going it do it right. One of the parents gave me a goalkeeper book and that become my bible to help me get to grips with what I could do with these goalkeepers. That fuelled the flame for coaching and I just really enjoyed it.
PR: The new Premier League season has just kicked off, is there a particular team that you support?
RA: There’s actually not, not strictly speaking. I’m a Nottingham Forest fan but my dad is a Sunderland fan so if I keep my eyes out for a team in the Premier League it would have to be Sunderland closely followed by Hull as that’s the local team to where I grew up.
PR: How did you end up supporting Nottingham Forest?
RA: It’s a silly answer. When I started to get interested into football my favourite player at the time was Stuart Pearce who happened to play for Nottingham Forest and it grew from that. I was, for my sins, hooked after that and had to work with a couple of promotions and many relegations and lots of years of under achieving in the Championship.
PR: I was going to ask who your favourite player was, but you’ve already said Stuart Pearce, so how about favourite coach?
RA: The obvious ones are Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola simply because of the unprecedented success they’ve had in such a short space of time. But I also quite like keeping an eye out for coaches who do something different whether it be someone like Walter Mazzarri at Napoli who played a very flexible 3-4-3 or Jorge Sampaoli who has gone to Sevilla. The way he set up his team play Barcelona and Real Madrid in the past weeks suggests they’re going to be quite an exciting team because they do something different and that intrigues me.
PR: So is that a sign you plan on doing something ‘different’ at Tasman?
RA: The easy answer is yes, of course we will. But we need to look at the players we’ve got and work out what is the best way we can get these players to play together so they can perform on a Sunday.
PR: Prior to arriving in Nelson, you were head of development at the Cook Islands Football Association. How did you end up there?
RA: A friend of mine who I had known from university, I had worked for him at Aldershot Town and Crawley Town, well he was offered the head coach-technical director role at the Cook Islands. Just before he flew out he rung me and basically said if I could manage it do I want to go with him. The opportunity to get involved in a national association, to be involved and experience international and tournament football, that was the big clincher and that broadened out to trying to help shape the elite side of football in the country, culminating in taking the under-17s to Samoa for the OFC championship preliminary rounds.
PR: What stands out as the most memorable moments from your time in the Cook Islands?
RA: The day after the under-17 tournament, where we unfortunately didn’t qualify. We just needed a point to qualify and it was 0-0 going into 90 minutes but unfortunately we conceded from a corner in stoppage time. But amidst all the disappointment and the tears, the boys were just absolutely fantastic. The day after they threw a feast for me before I got on the plane. It was very traditional in the Cook Islands and the gifts, the kind words from parents and the boys themselves, and the fact that they didn’t want me to get on the plane to the extent where one of them hid my passport, it was all very touching. I went there by myself but I left basically gaining 20 brothers and that last day really hit home.
The other thing that will stay with me is the very, very first tour- nament with the senior team. I loved working with them and for Drew Sherman, who was the head coach. The way we were able to knit together so quickly in such a short space of time and achieve the best performance from the Cook Islands national team a World Cup qualifier – that will be an experience that will stay with me as well.
PR: This is your first time coaching in New Zealand. Did you know anything at all about football in this country before landing the job with Tasman?
RA: I know a couple of people who work in New Zealand Football and a friend of mine lives in New Zealand and is involved in football so I was able to get some insight. But in terms of the intricacies of the national league itself and the players, that was completely new to me. It was very much a blank piece of paper and saying ‘okay, how am I going to go about this and insure I get as much information and knowledge as I can?’ That point between leaving the Cook Islands and now is trying to understand the league and the players so we can put together a good, competitive squad here at Tasman United.
PR: This is going to be your first opportunity to be the head coach of a senior side. How does that differ from your previous development role?
RA: Development is about seeing progression in players session after session, week after week, season after season and being able to chart that and plan that. Whereas now come Sunday we have to get three points. The realist in me says ultimately if you get results that’s all that matters. As long as people are going out happy that we won, that’s all that matters. But then there’s a side of me where I want people who come to Trafalgar Park to be entertained and enjoy watching Tasman United. When you’re playing development football it’s a lot easier to cultivate such an environment and build such a team.
If you lose, not that it doesn’t matter, but you can sell it as part of the journey towards playing a style that improves the individual players and brings them up technically. The biggest challenge is being able to marry those together; playing a style that is entertaining and gets people wanting to watch us, and the players enjoying playing a way that improves them but is ultimately successful.
PR: What do you think is the biggest challenge Tasman face in their first season?
RA: The unknowns in itself are probably the biggest challenge. We will have a group of players who will go out in the first game and we won’t know where we stand in the league in terms of the order of things. It’ll be very much, in the pre-season, trying to convince the squad collectively that we are good enough to compete and that we are not in the league, as we might be seen from outside the league, as also-rans. We believe we can surprise a few people this year.