The inevitable departure of a good Keane man
OPINION: Two down, and two more likely to go. That’s the equation for the Chiefs’ current Super Rugby coaching team, as a 100 per cent cleanout firms as a favourite for 2018.
With head coach Dave Rennie leaving for Glasgow and being replaced next year by Colin Cooper, the predictable news came out early yesterday that assistant coach Kieran Keane would also be heading off to greener pastures the emerald ones of Ireland.
Keane has been appointed head coach of Connacht, signing a threeyear deal at the club where fellow Kiwi Pat Lam has just left. It’s an opportunity to return to the driver’s seat for the 63-year-old, who seems more at home with steering the ship, and who will see out his two-year deal with the Chiefs before leaving at season’s end.
While time was probably ticking to give things a nudge overseas, being overlooked as Rennie’s successor would have been a body blow to Keane, and the catalyst to jet off.
After a 36-year ‘apprenticeship’ in New Zealand, he was still unable to land a Super Rugby head gig, even at a franchise where he had a one-year head-start before a replacement was sought, where his work as attack coach had looked the goods, and where he and chief executive Andrew Flexman share ties from their days at Tasman.
Cooper’s appointment for three years was a step back in time, but he was clearly seen as a safe pair of hands. He had the runs on the board in the stakes of top-level experience, and Keane didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean Keane wouldn’t have been miffed with the decision either. Having probably arrived at the franchise with the aim of working his way up, he was basically left with no option but to look elsewhere, as at his age and stage an assistant’s role is not exactly the thing that would get him out of bed every morning.
The former All Black coached New Zealand under-16 and under17 teams, Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Tasman, and was an assistant at the Highlanders in 2011 and 2012. Now he’s just one of the statistics of Kiwis coaching abroad. And fair play to him.
For now, it seems Keane is carefully holding his tongue (unlike his verbal shots at Canterbury when leaving the Tasman job), and dignity, avoiding any possible digs at an employer with whom he still has six months.
He declined a media interview following Cooper’s appointment, while when the Chiefs were asked yesterday if he was available to talk about his move to Connacht, the reply was that Keane was happy that his comment in the press release covered everything.
But Keane’s move isn’t expected to be the last at Chiefs HQ, though, as fellow assistants Andrew Strawbridge and Neil Barnes may also depart when their deals are up at the end of the season, making it a clean slate for Cooper’s entrance.
Cooper was already expected to bring in some of his own, with Paul Tito a likely candidate, as the Taranaki partnership that was established with the Chiefs in 2013 becomes stronger.
Along with the departure of the team’s fifth ‘coach’ - playmaker Aaron Cruden, to France, - it will be a change-up for everyone involved.