O’Connell appointment the answer to some of Ireland’s problems
DURING the first lockdown in May last year, the IRFU analytics department hosted a two-day webinar about performance analytics in sport.
The final panel in the webinar was the headline act – the (now former) manager of Dundalk Vinny Perth, Ireland head coach Andy Farrell and Paul O’Connell.
Even though they were more than a hundred miles apart in their respective homes, it was easy to pick up on the warmth between Farrell and O’Connell who got to know each other on Lions tours.
During the discussion, O’Connell spoke about what he learned in his season as forwards coach with Stade Francais and how he tried to keep players’ attention during meetings that lasted no longer than 20 minutes.
“We remember the most at the start of the meeting and at the end of the meeting,” O’Connell said about giving information to players. “So we might have a little bit of a walk-through in the middle of the meeting or we might have a game of penalties in the middle of the meeting. So we’re turning the meeting into two meetings – two starts, two ends.
“I liked presenting in the gym before they went in to do their weights because they knew weights were starting at nine o’clock and if I’m doing a video at 10 to nine they know, and they trust me, that the video is only going to be nine minutes,” O’Connell said.
Engagement
“Other times, telling guys to stand up during the meeting because it’s going to be short – they then trust you and believe you that it’s going to be short and you’ll get a bit more engagement as well.”
O’Connell’s brief in this webinar wasn’t to give a tutorial on the minute machinations and mechanics of a lineout operation, it was about his opinion on how best to disseminate stats and information to players.
O’Connell spoke about trying to “create a little bit of a story” for the players for the Monday debrief and he also quickly realised that what might excite him in a presentation may not be reciprocated.
O’Connell wasn’t trying to sound like he had all the answers, it was clear he was still trying to figure out the best way to join up all the dots for players.
“The hard bit I always find was trying to attach our lineout-winning or our ruck-winning to how it affected our plan. And making players believe in our plan for the ruck or believe in our plan for the lineout because of the big effect it has on our overall game-plan,” O’Connell added.
Maybe the sign of a really good communicator is when they talk clearly about a topic they’re still trying to figure out. Because the only thing you were left confused about after watching and listening to O’Connell in that webinar was how he wasn’t part of a professional coaching team (even if it was his own decision).
This almost certainly wasn’t lost either on the national head coach who was listening and watching on the same virtual call.
Over seven months later and the announcement of O’Connell as the new forwards coach in Farrell’s coaching team is like a well-needed shot of freshness and familiarity, as much as that comes with the contradiction that O’Connell has very limited professional coaching experience.
It was as recently as the end of October that O’Connell described professional coaching as a bit “too full-on for me”, although that was more in reference to club coaching. But the more Farrell’s first year as Ireland head coach went on, the more O’Connell looked like the answer to some of the problems.
The emasculation and breakdown of the Irish lineout at pivotal moments in the defeats to France and England last autumn began to become code for the fragility of this team – Ireland’s traditional strength was becoming a highly damaging weakness.
And there was something else lacking in what Farrell wanted in relation to the identity of the team, the “true Irish grit”.
O’Connell knows the importance of identity and having home-grown coaches in a squad – he himself publicly expressed disappointment at the lack of home-grown coaches in Munster in 2019 when Jerry Flannery and Felix Jones left the province.
O’Connell’s promotion to national forwards coach is an unorthodox rise for a coach who spent only one season working as a forwards coach with Stade Francais (his previous work was with the Munster academy and Irish U-20s).
He didn’t spend years abroad mapping out his coaching career like Ronan O’Gara has been doing going from Racing 92 to Crusaders in New Zealand and back to France for his first head coach job at La Rochelle.
Template
O’Connell didn’t follow the Leo Cullen template, who was elevated quicker than expected to the head coach job of his home province and who built a coaching team at Leinster to rival any national set-up.
But we’re also not talking a leap on the scale of a Martin Johnson-type scenario who took over the top job in England in 2008 with no previous top-level coaching experience and on the basis that he was a World Cup-winning captain.
O’Connell wasn’t like any other player and his fast-tracking as a coach is unlike any other coach. His work as a forwards coach will be an extension – albeit, a much broader and more detailed one obviously – of the work he used to do as the lineout operator, pack leader and captain with Munster, Ireland and the Lions.
O’Connell may not go so far as to call himself an “accidental coach” like Joe Schmidt called himself, but O’Connell doesn’t currently come across as a ‘career’ coach either, which raised the unthinkable prospect (for Munster and Irish rugby) that he might forgo
O’Connell always had the standing of being a quasi-coach as a player
coaching altogether.
But we can almost take it for granted that he’ll bring that same singular focus he had as a player.
This is the same guy who in 2009 enrolled for a business degree with the Open University, bought all the books but the week before the course was due to start, he started worrying that he would get too competitive and that passing the degree wouldn’t be enough for him and that it could affect his rugby. So, he pulled out of the course.
His rugby thrived that year. O’Connell is the first of that 2009 Grand Slam team to return as a coach with the national squad. The argument that he might still be too friendly with some of his former team-mates, like Peter O’Mahony for example, seems redundant to a degree because O’Connell always had the standing of being a quasi-coach as a player.
But the mistake is to also assume that O’Connell the coach will need to be the exact same as O’Connell the player.
There will be motivational speeches but not at the level of the ones he gave as a player because he can’t follow up the speeches by going out to play. This will be about giving the players their voice. He always knew that, even as a player.
“I think we need more players who turn up everyday thinking, ‘This is our team. Whatever’s wrong, we can fix it’. They’re the ones you hang your hat on. When we adopt that mentality, we’ll be playing to our potential again,” O’Connell said in his autobiography The Battle about the Munster team going into his final season.
As a player, O’Connell was a mix of the traditional and the modern. He played on emotion but also on detail. He was serious but had a sense of humour. He was a thinker and a doer. He questioned, he communicated, he answered, he inspired. It seems like all the qualities are there for him to become an outstanding coach.
For Farrell, getting O’Connell on his coaching team may turn out to be one of the most significant selection calls he will make as Ireland head coach.