Mulvihill on his hopes for future as he embarks on second term
AUSSIE John Mulvihill is about to embark on his second year as head coach of the Cardiff Blues.
It’s been an eventful summer for the region as they’ve moved out of the Vale Resort and set up a new training base at the Arms Park and Sophia Gardens.
So how are things shaping up and what are Mulvihill’s hopes for the coming campaign?
Q: What did you learn from your first year in the role?
A: When you come into a new job, you learn a lot about the players, you learn about your staff and how they react to pressure and what they are like on and off the field.
The longer I have been coaching – and this is my 22nd year as a professional coach – the more I understand it’s mostly about relationships and how you need to have really good ones with people within the group.
Last year, we were all in a little bit of a rush early on. It was only like a five-week preseason. So I just felt we were a little bit underdone going in.
Q: What are the targets for this season? A: Our three big values this year are work hard, be consistent and look after our family.
If we can do that from Monday to Sunday each week, I think we will do a bit better than we did last year and we only have to do a little bit better. We’ve only got to win two or three more games and we make finals.
The Blues haven’t made the PRO14 play-offs yet and that’s one of our targets, along with getting out of our pool in Europe.
One of the big things we need to improve on is the consistency of performance.
Over the last number of years, it’s been a case of win 10, lose 11 or win 11, lose 10. We need to get out of that cycle.
We played some really good rugby last year, but it’s about making sure we go back-to -back. You’ve got to win three and four games in a row, rather than just the ones and twos.
Traditionally, we’ve been great one week and then the following week we’ve been poor and lost to a side we should beat. That’s a big bugbear of our supporters.
We need to work hard at everything we do and be consistent.
We also need to score tries from more different facets of play, such as from turnovers, 63 per cent of our tries came from first phase last season.
Q: How is the new training arrangement working out?
A: Really good. The boys love it. I think a change is as good as a holiday.
We start our morning earlier and finish earlier. We are in by 7am and they are out of there by about 2.30pm to miss the traffic both ways. We are just smart about how we train and prepare.
There’s nothing negative about it. I’m really proud of the boys. They’ve just been brilliant the way they have taken it on board.
Q: So what kind of shape is the squad in? A: They have come in extremely fit. We are hitting all our targets. There’s no fat club!
At the end of last season, we had Dr Tim Gabbett, an Aussie high-performance consultant, come in and talk to the squad. He is a sports scientist who has worked for the Broncos and Melbourne Storm.
The WRU had got him over to speak to the academy coaches from all the regions and I invited him in to speak to our players. It was the day before we were breaking up.
He gave them a summarised 20-minute talk of the three hours he had done the day before. He was absolutely fantastic.
He talked about the gap between floor and ceiling in terms of fitness. Towards the end of the season, they are quite close. But when you go away for five weeks, there can be a dramatic drop-off.
He talked about the importance of looking after yourself during your time off and turning the legs over in off-season.
It was very simple, but the boys got a lot out of it.
When they came back in, they said that floor-ceiling thing was in their heads all the time, every beer they had. They all got running and did training.
So, probably for the first time in a lot of clubs’ histories, there’s no fat club.
Every player ran a personal best on day one, which is fantastic.
All they did to achieve that was keep their legs going over two or three or times a week during that off season. Whether they were in Wales or on holiday, they just did the extra bit of work. It made a big difference.
We don’t have to worry about fitness, because they are fit. And when you don’t have to focus so much on fitness, you can focus more on rugby and your programme improves.
There are no problems with fitness at all this year, whereas last season we were chasing our tail and we only had a five-week pre-season.
We had four surgeries this summer and all those guys are back now. We have only got two long-term injuries in Ellis Jenkins and Rhun Williams.
Q: What’s the latest on Ellis Jenkins’ likely return?
A: We are looking towards the end of November, early December to see him out on the pitch.
He’s back running now. He is just enjoying getting back onto the green space and getting his body moving. That was one of the little milestones he had to get over in his head that it’s okay to run.
He’s up and running now, so he’s making big strides for us and his time will come. We don’t need to rush. There are some European games early in December. That could be a likely starting point.
Q: Rhun Williams has been out since February 2018 with shoulder nerve damage, so it was good to see him lifting weights in the gym the other day. Where is he at?
A: He is looking good. He’s been out playing touch football and he’s a doing a little bit of skill in the rehab group.
We get to hear again of his progress in a couple of weeks. He’s making great strides. You can see that from his presence in and around the boys. He’s enjoying being here again.
We are just taking every consultation as it
comes. To be fair, he’s hanging in there really well and he is seeing big improvements, so we just hope that continues.
Q: How do you handle Jarrod Evans and Owen Lane after their disappointment of missing out on Wales’ World Cup squad?
A: Both of them came in and spent some time with the coaches and the players last week.
They were very disappointed about not making it, but they will get over that in time. They have spent four or five months absolutely at the grind, getting their bodies ready for a World Cup. They have both played Test matches recently, so they are forever grateful for that.
For those guys now, it’s about having a bit of time away. We don’t expect them back into the programme until September 19.
I have said to them if they don’t need to be treated, just don’t come in.
We want two fresh players walking back in the door because they are important to our programme.
Both of them really want to play in our opening league game against Southern Kings and get started again.
We will welcome them back with open arms and they will be available for that game.
Q: You lost your first three league matches last season, all of them by just a couple of points. How important is to make a better start this time around?
A: That was from only being together five weeks as a group. We lost games when we led until the last few minutes and we shouldn’t have.
We lost against Leinster and didn’t learn and took that into Treviso and Zebre and the same thing happened.
It cost us the season because we were two wins away from making the play-offs. We have to start well.
We go to the Southern Kings first up with a bit of trepidation. That’s the banana skin, isn’t it?
Everyone is saying we should win over there, but they have been to Georgia and played on tour over there, they have played Namibia twice.
They are going in with some good international experience and galvanised with a new coach. Being at home they could get a bounce.
But we are preparing well. We are going over to South Africa for nine days in all, with a training camp in Cape Town before we go down to Port Elizabeth for the game.
If you look at it, we lost the first three games last season by a couple of points and we also lost the last few games narrowly. But we won about 85 per cent of games in between that.
We’ve got to make sure we start the season well and play entertaining rugby which wins games. If you win more than you lose, you make finals and if you make finals you’ve got a good chance of winning silverware.
Q: And what about the longer-term objectives for the region?
A: I am quite lucky there is some patience in and around the new board and the new chairman. We have got a bit of a plan for the future. The majority of our squad is aged between 20 and 26.
If we can keep that group together for four or five years, you are going to win a lot more games than you lose.
What we will do next then is look at our retention and recruitment and bring in players from in and outside of Wales who will add to where we are headed. We will continue to look at our tight five and at No 8, because they are quite scarce in Wales.
Q: So, after 20-plus years as a coach are you still enjoying it?
A: Yeah, I love it. When you get to coach in a country where the first sport is rugby, it’s fantastic.
People are knowledgeable, they understand how a season pans out.
We have got probably the best supporters in the competition.
They always pack this place out, a lot of them always travel with us and we hope to give them a better ride than they had last year and make sure our season extends and goes longer into play-offs and finals.
We’ve got to make sure we start the season well and play enertaining rugby which wins games John Mulvihill