Irish tough guys here to stay now - Kennedy
BRENDAN Venter’s inspiring leadership will ensure London Irish’s band of callow coaches rise to the task of achieving Premiership survival, according to rugby director Nick Kennedy.
At 34, Kennedy is by some distance the least experienced head honcho in the top-flight, while assistants Paul Hodgson (35), Declan Danaher (37) and George Skivington (34) are also experiencing their first seasons coaching at the highest level.
However, Kennedy believes he holds a trump card in hard-nosed South African Venter, below, with the former England, Exiles and Toulon lock telling The
Rugby Paper: “We have a technical director in Brendan who’s got enough experience for both of us.
“He’s been there and done it with many teams, including Saracens where he was extremely successful, and he’s just come off the back of helping South Africa get three big wins against France, so we’ll be working together very closely this season.
“Brendan has an incredible amount of energy and knowledge and I’ve learned an awful lot from having played with him and been mentored by him. He’s been a teammate of mine, a coach and everyone loves his energy and the way he does things.
“Personally, I’m really looking forward to being involved in the Premiership again and I’ve loved the Premiership since I played my first game for Irish in 2003. I’ve watched a ridiculous amount over the years and we want to really challenge other teams.
“Our coaches might not have experience of coaching in the Premiership, but people like Paul Hodgson and Declan Danaher are very talented people who were unbeaten at U18s level and won every game bar one in last season’s Championship.
“This is a massive step up, make no bones about it, and we’re unproven, but we’ve already achieved some success and we’re all really passionate people who’ve bled for this club and are working hard to be better. Time will tell if we’re good enough.” Kennedy admits Irish have been behind the recruitment curve since securing promotion, but the expected addition of former Ulster lock Franco van der Merwe will add much needed ballast to their tight-five after the departure of George Robson. “The late finish has made things harder and straight after the Championship final I was back in the office emailing a contract to a player,” Kennedy explained.
“It’s been tough to do business but we’ve got people who want to come and play for us and we had an excellent squad already. Eighty per cent of our squad is the same so our challenge is how quickly we can integrate people into our way of playing.”
Irish will start the season among the favourites to go down, but Kennedy takes comfort from how Northampton and Harlequins reinvented themselves after relegation and the example of Exeter, who came up and are now Premiership champions.
Kennedy added: “The way Exeter have built is definitely something to look at and we’d love to emulate Harlequins and Northampton, who both came up and won the title. However, we’re London Irish and we need to do things our own way and be a bit different.
“Relegation last year was so sad and it cost people their jobs, but at the time I tweeted: ‘Tough times don’t last, tough people do.’ Irish is full of tough people who rolled their sleeves up and got the club back to where it belongs. We aim to stay there.”