Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
Andy has a vision for this team and it’s really coming good
BOSS FARRELL’S PERSONALIT Y ALL OVER IRISH SUCCESS
Andy Farrell’s linking up with Ireland in 2016 was considered a left-field choice, at best.
He had previously been England’s RWC2015 Defence Coach, tarred by association with a hapless crew unable to get out of their pool at a home competition.
Moreover, it was unclear what he had actually taken on workwise.
Then Ireland coach Joe Schmidt was always thought of as a one-man band, neither collaborator nor delegator.
Had the boss merely added someone to help put out the cones, collect the tackle-bags, say ‘yes’?
Truth is, we know now, it was Ireland’s 2013 Lions tourists — respected, influential players such as O’Driscoll, O’Connell, Sexton, Best — who had been irretrievably, massively, impressed by Farrell on tour.
Impetus
And, who, given a flat 2015 Rugby World Cup, just two 2016 Six Nations wins and a suspicion Schmidt’s regime was starting to lose impetus, insisted ‘Faz’ could be the fix.
Were they right? Farrell came, had a first Six Nation campaign in 2017 and Ireland won the 2018 Grand Slam.
It was a backroom role at that time, soundbites were few, generally staccato and rarely revealing.
Right so, disclosure; one of my first encounters with Farrell involved a minor brush at a press conference where I had queried the number of tackles being missed by the backs — and the centres in particular.
Following an around the houses non-answer the engagement fizzled out, most of my colleagues wary of trying to fish for answers from the guarded, bearded Englishman.
Afterwards, and to my surprise Farrell, instead of exiting stage left to the players area, he strode down the room brushed past me, said something I didn’t quite pick up, and exited stage right through a window type door to a garden!
My cards had clearly been marked — there is only One F in troublemaker...
Imagine my surprise so when the Head Coach spotted me in Portugal in early 2020 and, falling into step, we proceeded to have a breezy conversation about ‘Madchester’.
Music
That’s Man City, Manchester music and such bands as The Fall, The Smiths, Oasis, Happy Mondays, James, Buzzcocks, New Order, Elbow...
The Wigan-born boy was more than knowledgeable about Wigan Casino, Wigan’s Chosen Few, that so eccentric and brilliant, fabulous Northern soul scene ....
Latterly, there may have been a Haaland/de Bruyne/Gundogan goal signalled to him midRTE/BBC/Sky interview in a Paris/Cardiff/Dublin setting.
Maybe, and I hope this is true, he shares my desperation that so many of those rugby international players follow Man Utd, it seems to be a thing — we are talking about BOD, Axel Foley, Sexton for instance.
And that, somehow, my seven-year experience is a heat-map equivalent of how Farrell has warmed to Ireland and, in tandem, Ireland has warmed to Farrell.
Former Ireland flanker
Sean O’Brien is inclined to agree there has been a thaw in progress:“I’d like to think Andy has developed. And that’s why it is a very good environment, where you can express yourself.
“It’s been stuff that he is living himself, brilliant, but it is just a progression on where he started out.
“He is a very smart man and smart coach and great with people, so he is on to a winner straight away.”
“He was always a very good motivator, very passionate, a good people person.
“That’s what I thought when I met him first anyway — you can always be open and honest with him and those traits have come into that squad now.”
Same
Sexton was one of those aforementioned players instrumental in bringing Farrell in from his post-RWC2015 cold.
“Sometimes when you have assistant coaches and they go into the head coaches, they lose what made them such a great assistant coach,” said Sexton.
“The best thing about Andy is he’s always been himself, has been the exact same. He’s still so popular with the players and staff.
“He’s the life and soul of the party, so it’s great in that regard, that he hasn’t distanced himself.”
Tellingly, Sexton sees Farrell as a proven serial winner, undamaged by that England CV entry
“It was a fantastic appointment by Joe to get him when he left England.
“You might say it’s the first time Andy has been in this Grand Slam situation as a head coach but he’s been in it as an
assistant coach, he’s been in it probably 100 times as a player because he had such success with Wigan, then going into World Cup with England etc.
“He set out at the start that this was a three or four-year project and it’s started to come good, so he has to take all the kudos from it. This has been his vision and he’s delivering on it.”
Ireland’s captain-in-waiting James Ryan, is another won over. Ryan likes Farrell’s analytical approach but, interestingly, talks of a healthy fear of his wrath — you don’t want to go there.
“I’ve heard him shout before, although he doesn’t shout very often, he is pretty measured.
“So, when he does shout there’s a bit of that (Alex Ferguson) hairdryer.
“To be honest Joe (Schmidt) didn’t shout very often either but if Andy does shout you sit up and take notice.”
But then Schmidt and Farrell — and this may be the two coaches’ biggest difference — tended to have different touchpaper moments.
Joe hated sloppy training, the dropping of balls, Andy isn’t for sweating the small stuff.
Shout
“Eh, nah,” continues Ryan, “Andy wouldn’t really shout about that stuff, nobody means to drop the ball on, do you know what I mean, so he’d probably take it next ball focussed.
“But if there’s a pattern and everybody is dropping the ball, well then there’s an issue, so he might step in. But the odd dropped ball, nobody means to drop the ball.”
Devin Toner agrees the Farrell ‘hair-dryer’ is a lesser used approach.
“When it comes to training, meetings, Andy is very hardnosed, very much to the point, he wants the best from you, to create an environment where people can thrive.
“He wants you to be prepared, to perform and he wouldn’t be kind of friendly around that space.
“But it’s different between the situations. Off the pitch, when you’re circulating in your downtime and you’re socialising, he is very affable and very friendly and wants to get to you know very well. He wants to know your partner’s name and he’s very likeable.”
The recently-restored Ross Byrne may have seemed a long way from Farrell’s thoughts, yet the out-half talks of a line of unbroken and continuous contact, of not feeling an outsider.
“We have had conversations when I haven’t been in the squad, he’s given me little work-ons to do and I’d try to implement those as best as possible.
Repay
“Encouraged, I’ve probably done that a lot more this season than in the past and, getting picked in this squad, it’s just about trying to put that into practice on the international stage.”
Finlay Bealham sees a coach who showed loyalty, protected him fiercely in darker days.
“I love working with Faz,” says Bealham, who’s star has very much been in the ascendancy lately — proving Farrell’s faith in him right.
“I suppose the belief that he had in me, I had to repay that with a good performance and at the same time don’t get too carried away with myself.”
Mack Hansen came into the Ireland squad with no concept of the previous regime or it’s politics — he sees Farrell as an open-book, a good one at that.
“He just encourages you to be yourself.
“He always says there are no wrong answers, sometimes it feels like there is but he’s great in that way.”
The wrong answer, it seems, would have been if Joe Schmidt had said ‘No’ in 2016.