United on a very unique journey they will make together
Greg McWilliams reflects on his coaching road from Ireland’s back-room team at the women’s World Cup to his current role in New York as his wife Sarah fights breast cancer, the latest in a long line of health problems
IT is the love for life and family that make the adventures worth the sacrifices. The life of a rugby coach is a perilous one, without a security net to catch you if you fall.
Greg and Sarah McWilliams have known the thrill of the chase and have experienced the setbacks of an ectopic pregnancy rupture, miscarriages and now her cancer diagnosis on their journey together.
Back in 2014, Greg was at a crossroads in his career after the completion of the Women’s World Cup, where he worked as the attack coach for Philip Doyle.
“I went from being a student at St Michael’s to teaching and coaching there. It occupied a huge portion of my life. I still stay in regular contact with many staff members, Tim Kelleher, the principal, and Andy Skehan.
“Those experiences at St Michael’s, the Leinster under-age grade (U-19s) and with the Irish Women were valuable as stepping stones to getting the job that would be my next challenge as a coach.
“But I was ready to move out of my comfort zone. I had visions of coaching at the highest level and I was ambitious to do that,” says McWilliams.
Everything changed with a phone call, completely out of the blue, by a gentleman called Philip Lynch, the chairman of the Yale University alumni board.
“Philip is an incredible person and businessman. To this day, he remains a mentor of mine,” says McWilliams.
“I was offered the opportunity to coach at Yale and help create a holistic rugby programme, based around education and growth, on and off the field.”
Three days after the Women’s World Cup, Greg and Sarah were crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the way to a new adventure.
“As a former teacher, I have a real interest in education and what we can take from it for coaching, building channels of communication around each specific individual or player and creating the right pedagogy for a particular group,” says McWilliams.
“It was just the right time. I was fascinated to go over to that environment and learn from people in education, who are innovators and very detailed in their process.
“Going to Yale University was far more appealing than stepping directly into the professional game. I had a thirst to develop my understanding surrounding coach education.
“It has been an incredible five years,” said McWilliams. “You come over to America and you’re not sure if you are going to continue your development as a coach, because the level of player is below the players I would have coached previously.
Opportunity
“What I didn’t realise was that there was the opportunity to learn more than I could have imagined.
“In my opinion, the art of creating a challenging, fun, intelligent environment – regardless of the talent – is a massively under-rated skill. I believe it is the backbone to education.
“As a coach, it is not necessarily about your technical knowledge, we can all learn a system. It really is the understanding of that system you are implementing, and coaching through the how, why and when.”
McWilliams has put in place a rugby programme at Yale, coached with the Barbarians, spent time in New Zealand with the Chiefs, found mentors in New Zealanders Robbie Deans and Scott Robertson.
Most recently, he worked as an assistant to Gary Gold with the USA at the 2019 World Cup before his present role as the head coach to Rugby United New York (RUNY) in the embryonic Major League Rugby (MLR).
He could not have taken that leap of faith in 2014 without the stellar support of his wife Sarah.
“She has been my biggest supporter,” he says. “When you do this job as a rugby coach, it is very isolating. You spend a huge amount of time travelling, a huge amount of time on your own in front of a laptop.
“It’s a challenge to get the balance right. We have moved many times and Sarah has been with me every step of the way.”
At the same time, it hasn’t been without harrowing setbacks. Sarah has had a number of operations since coming to America, the first an emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy rupture six weeks after they landed.
Over the first two years in USA there were multiple miscarriages, six rounds of IVF and a stressful, problematic surrogacy journey to deliver their precious twins Lanarose and Archie, now 19 months young.
The distance the job can put between them was never more painful than when one of the miscarriages happened when Greg was in Australia.
“That was the worst of those, not being there, or even close to help,” says McWilliams.
Through it all they have kept faith in each other and counted the twins as the blessing that made it all worthwhile.
Sarah had sacrificed so much so Greg could follow his dreams, making it all the more heartbreaking when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of January, two weeks before the start of this season. “Originally, we thought it was mastitis. On closer inspection, a very large tumour was discovered in her breast. During the operation to remove the tumour, the doctors discovered aggressive lymph nodes, which tested positive for cancer.
“I hadn’t gotten my head around how serious it was until that moment. That drew the big panic,” he said.
The fear was the cancer had spread and that could mean the worst news of all. A PET scan revealed it had not.
“You get over that hurdle, where it is isolated to the top right of her body. It is treatable through chemotherapy and radiation.”
The sunny spirit that enabled Sarah to support the move to the States is still there breaking through those dark moments. “Sarah is an inspiration, she considers herself so lucky that it is manageable. So many are not so lucky.
“Everyone knows someone who has experienced it in some shape or form. Inspiration comes in many forms.
“My sister Jacqui is a survivor. She went through chemotherapy with five young kids.
“I remember having a conversation with Sarah, talking about the fact that I should look to take time off work,” says McWilliams.
“She looked at me like I had two heads. She knows well that we have to keep going forward as best as we can, while we can, doing our best to keep everything as normal as possible.”
Family and friends have flocked to Sarah and Greg’s sides in this time of need.
“It really has been overwhelming, the number of people that reach out to you. Some of them you mightn’t have talked to in years. They check in just to say they are thinking of your family at this time. That’s vital.
“It has opened my eyes to the importance of reaching out more to people going through tough times.
“It makes things easier knowing there is that goodwill out there,” says McWilliams. “It means a lot when Sarah is far away from home.”
The opening five weekends of the league were all spent away from their home in Connecticut in a quirk of the fixture list, designed for keeping teams away from the cold north-east until the weather picks up.
Grind
“We play for 16 out of 17 weeks. It is full-on. It is a grind,” adds McWilliams.
“We played our first five matches away, the first two in Las Vegas, the third in Atlanta, the fourth in Texas and the fifth in San Diego, one week after another. When I am away, the key is to make sure there are people around for Sarah. Our families have been so supportive. Sarah’s mum and brother have been over, as has my eldest brother.
“It is just so difficult for Sarah, particularly with our twins Lanarose and Archie. She has already completed two operations in the last two weeks.”
Now that the league has been suspended for at least a month due to Covid-19, Greg is there as a guardian at the side of bed-bound Sarah.
“It is just part of our journey. We have always had a unique journey, myself and Sarah,” he says. “She has been through the wringer.”
Of course, in many ways, those operations are the beginning, not the end, of another new journey.