Ford to remain in German hot seat
FORMER England defence coach Mike Ford has confirmed he will remain in charge of Germany for the upcoming Rugby Europe Championship before deciding on his future in April.
Germany came close to qualifying for their first Rugby World Cup under the 53-year-old at last November’s repechage tournament in Marseille.
“For the next nine weeks I am going to coach them in the Championship,” he said. “The Union were pleased with what happened in the autumn (at the Rugby World Cup repechage), they think they have got a bit of momentum and they want to build on that.”
“Ideally, what they want to do is have another crack at the World Cup in 2023, and this is just the next step towards that. I am available and will help them out alongside Mouritz Botha.”
As things stand, Ford is scheduled to return to the United States and pick up where he left off with Dallas Griffins who deferred entry into Major League Rugby, America’s first professional rugby league, until 2020.
That allowed Ford to seek job opportunities elsewhere and it is thought he’d still be in the market if the right coaching opportunity in the UK and Europe came along.
Ford hasn’t worked in top-level European club rugby since leaving Toulon in April 2017 but can point to a 61 per cent win record at Bath, where he led the club to their first Premiership final in 12 years, as well as developing an exciting brand of rugby with a predominantly young English-qualified squad.
A job working alongside Geordan Murphy at Leicester, where sons George and Joe play, has been rumoured but, in the meantime, he is concentrating on continuing the improvement shown by Germany under his command.
Despite entering the repechage as bottom seeds, following heavy defeats in last year’s Rugby Europe Championship, Germany beat the higher-ranked Hong Kong and Kenya and gave eventual winners Canada a real run for their money before falling away in the final quarter.
Ford has lost a handful of players who impressed in Marseille to full-time contracts overseas but expects to have 75 per cent of his squad available for what looks like a tough campaign.
“Will we be as strong as we were at the repechage? Probably not. But the foundations that we put in place in that 12-week period, will put us on a better level when we start training a week on Monday.”
Germany begin their campaign against Belgium, on February 9, the first of two consecutive away games with a trip to Romania the following Saturday.
A trip to Georgia to take on the defending champions is sandwiched between home games against Russia and Spain.
“It’s a tough fixture list for us, especially starting with back-to-back away games. But we’ll give it our best shot and if we perform like we did in November, I think we’ll be competitive at the very least.”