Coaching set-up at Exiles can keep them up

LONDON IRISH may be the bookies’ favourites to go down but only a fool would under-estimate their coaching team.

I really like the set-up they’ve got at Irish with Brendan Venter mentoring a young coaching group – Nick Kennedy, Paul Hodgson and Declan Danaher – who are all keen students of the game.

In many ways, Paul Hodgson, below, reminds me of my old Tigers’ mate, Sam Vesty. By his own admission, Sam wasn’t the most naturally-gifted player – he didn’t beat a man oneon-one regularly and didn’t have blistering pace or power – but he was a damn good Premiership player who knew his own limitations and how to get the best out of what talent he had by using his brain.

Those skills have helped make him a good young coach, and I’d put ‘Dodge’ in the same bracket. You never looked at him as a world-class scrum-half who’d do something spectacular every time he touched the ball.

What you got with him, though, was the ability to do the right thing at the right time, put his side on the front foot and put the opposition under pressure in the same breath.

I’d expect Irish to adopt a simple gameplan based on the core foundations of a strong defence and kick-chase with the hope that the likes of Napolioni Nalaga and Joe Cokanasiga will provide that little bit of star dust to win them enough games to stay up.