Paul Gustard talks Harlequins, England... and Gordon Ramsay
Harlequins head of rugby Paul Gustard offers NEALE HARVEY his views on pre-season changes, his tenure so far and England’s World Cup prospects.
Is it true you’ve had celebrity chef Gordan Ramsay in at Quins during pre-season?
Yes, Gordon came in two weeks ago. He’s doing a new TV programme on healthy fast food and did some bits and pieces with the boys. We’re trying to see if we can use Gordon a bit more to work with our leadership group as well, around managing people and driving standards.
You love doing things differently, don’t you?
Yes. One, we don’t want to be a club that just keeps doing the same old nine-to-five stuff where you do units in the morning, have a meeting about defence and attack, train in the afternoon and then go home… then the next day it’s the same. That’s like Groundhog Day. We want boys to experience different characters, environments and challenges because we need them to be adaptable on the pitch. We need them to have variations in their thinking and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. We give them challenges such as presenting, being introduced to someone like Gordon Ramsay or going to military bases, Liquid Leisure etc. That stuff ’s important to break up the regularity of a rugby player’s life because they all love rugby and we just want them to stay enthused.
And number two?
Second, we want to improve our leadership density through the squad. We’re very fortunate to have Chris Robshaw as our sole captain this year but he won’t be able to play forever and we need to ensure the next captains of this team are developing their skillsets now. Leadership comes in many forms; you can be an energy leader, tactical leader or a technical, set-piece leader, so we want to make sure there’s room for different people and allow the skills they have to flourish. Outside voices can sometimes unlock stuff that I can’t and we’re fortunate that people like Gordon want to be associated with us through the strong Harlequins brand.
Was re-appointing Robshaw as skipper following James Horwill’s retirement an easy decision?
He was very keen to do it and there’s not one person at the club who would say a bad word about Chris. He’s a Harlequin through and through and has an unbelievable work ethic and clarity about what he wants to achieve. Chris epitomises the values we believe in, has 66 caps for his country, and has played 275 games for Quins, so he’s someone people respond to and follow. Chris, along with Mike Brown, Danny Care and younger guys like Alex Dombrandt, Marcus Smith and Jack Clifford, has been overlooked by England for the World Cup. Have you had much rebuilding of morale to do with them? I coached England for three years and a lot of those guys were on the journey with me and we shared some special memories. While guys are obviously disappointed, they’ve trained unbelievably well with us and it’s up to us to ensure they feel the support of the club. They’re competitive people who want to compete on the biggest stages they can, but the key thing now is that they take any disappointment they may be feeling and turn it into positive energy by leading from the front and driving standards here. I’ve got no doubt senior guys like Robshaw, Care, Brown and Clifford will do that, while for younger guys like Dombrandt, Smith and Marchant, the recent experience they’ve had with England is brilliant. We’re trying to embrace the positive aspects of that and make them feel special at the club.
From being 11 points clear of fifth place with seven Premiership games left last season, Quins failed to make the play-offs after losing six of them. Your conclusions?
Ultimately, we weren’t good enough and discipline cost us in games. But apart from getting pumped at home by Gloucester, which I accept responsibility for because I got our preparation wrong, we never got clipped by anybody else and remained resilient right to the end. It was just small margins that cost us but, fundamentally, we didn’t score enough points over those last seven games. Our tries scored went from an average of nearly five tries per game to less than two and we were just not taking our opportunities. Poor discipline also kicked in so that when we went to a place like Sale and were by far the better team, we lost!
Mapletoft as an academy coach and recruit Sean Long to assist Nick Evans with your attack?
Mark is an exceptional coach who’s done exceptional stuff for the club. He’s won a Premiership and helped develop a perception of Harlequins as one of the most dangerous attacking teams. He felt ready for a new challenge, though, and we were very keen to keep him at the club because of the qualities he’s got, so him going into the academy role is massive for us because we need to redevelop our academy as a real force. We used to be the envy of other clubs in that area but no longer are, so having someone like Mark, with his experience of working with England U20s and pathway performance, is invaluable and we still sit six feet from each other and exchange ideas. Chim Gale, our new head of academy, is an outstanding addition as well so we’re looking to build on what’s been done in our academy before.
With Sean, I was just looking for something a bit different and when we looked at the detail of those last seven games, we didn’t score enough points despite having chances to do so. I was looking for that extra detail and having spoken to players who’d been
“We need to redevelop our academy ... we used to be the envy of other clubs but no longer are”
coached by Sean, he knows attack very well and is unbelievably competitive. The more competitive we are on and off the field and the bigger our desire to improve, it increases our chances of achieving our goals.
Nick Evans (attack), Adam Jones (scrum) and Alex Codling (lineout) have another year under their coaching belts, do you expect them to improve as well?
We’ve got a young coaching group across the board. I’ve coached for ten years but never had a head of rugby role like the one I’m in now where everything’s on me, while it’s Nick’s third year as a coach, Adam’s second and Alex is also only in his second year as a Premiership coach.
As a coaching group, it’s not just the knowledge that counts but understanding the requirements of an elite coach and how well we work together. As a group we’re moving forward; there’s a really good chemistry between us and I’m delighted with the strength and conditioning, medical and logistical staff we have as well. In fact, we all went away for a three-day camp before the boys came back for pre-season and some staff who’ve been here for 12-15 years said it was the first time they’d done that.
Adam Jones hosted us in Cardiff and what he doesn’t know about Cardiff isn’t worth knowing, so it was nice to do some white-water rafting, have a few beers together and also have a really productive period to ensure we work in harmony as a group.
There’s a great buzz and energy among our coaching staff, which I think is reflected in the players.
Anything about your first season in the head honcho’s role that surprised you?
The job description didn’t surprise me, it was the level of work required with some aspects of it that I didn’t fully appreciate. Even with writing the training programmes for a month ahead, the time and thought I ended up putting into it was huge. Working with Eddie Jones with England, he would revisit, revisit and revisit stuff, so that stood me in good stead and without the experience I’d had in my three years with Eddie and the learnings I took from him, along with working for Mark McCall before that at Saracens, to have done my current job would have been a tall ask.
Who would you identify as your main coaching inspirations?
As a head of rugby, I’m curious about the world and curious about coaching and I was exactly the same as a player. I did Law at university which lends itself to someone who likes debate and challenge and I like looking into things forensically. My dad was a coach, so from an early age I analysed the way I played and throughout my playing career at Leicester, London Irish and Saracens I was lucky to work with guys like Bob Dwyer, John Wells, Pat Howard, Rod Kafer, Brendan Venter, Eddie Jones and Alan Gaffney before working as a coach under Eddie and Mark McCall. I worked with Clive Woodward as well when he was with England and along the way I’ve tried to pick up things that resonate with me and also look for behaviours and values of coaches that aren’t synergetic with my thinking. There’s a big saying at Harlequins that you’ve got to be the best version of yourself and not to try and imitate anyone else, but you still take the best qualities you can from people that will make you a better player, coach or human being. There’s no point me being an imitation of Mark McCall because I’m more extrovert than him and I’m a different human being to Eddie Jones, but there are things that both of these coaches do that I have unbelievable admiration for and have put my own slant on to try and put that to my advantage.
What part of Eddie’s coaching benefitted you most?
I feel a lot more comfortable in my current job for having had my England experience. Under Eddie, aside from the huge successes we enjoyed as a team, I was able to go to the Melbourne Storm and spend two weeks with Craig Bellamy, go to the Rebels and spend time with Dave Wessels and I’ve spent time with (England football manager) Gareth Southgate on a number of occasions. I’ve spent time with other guys like Richard Cockerill and Jim Mallinder and been able to glean loads from all those people in terms of how you interact with players and be honest with them.
On the subject of Eddie, right, what did you make of England’s World Cup squad?
There weren’t enough Quins players in it! There are a few guys I’d like to have seen in there but that’s just my opinion and what’s important now is that we, as a Premiership club, support Eddie all the way. The squad he’s selected is the one he believes can win the World Cup and, as a hugely patriotic Englishman, if any of our players are required to help out, they’ll be ready because I like our players to be exposed to England and Eddie’s coaching.
How do you assess England’s World Cup chances?
Good. They’re a well-coached team, they’re going to be very fit and they’ve got an unbelievably strong squad. They’ve got a lot of fire power and if you’re looking at ball-carriers, whether it’s Ellis Genge, Mako or Billy Vunipola, Courtney Lawes, Manu Tuilagi or Joe Cokanasiga, there’s six really big, powerful, go-to carriers. You’ve got a very strong half-back kicking game with George Ford, Owen Farrell, Ben Youngs and Willi Heinz and they can play a possession game as well because they’re so fit and have guys who can resource the breakdown like Tom Curry, Sam Underhill, Mark Wilson and Lewis Ludlam. Their set-piece is strong and they’ve got some X-factor backs so if they can just tighten up that defence a bit, they have every chance.
Wales, Ireland and Scotland are in the midst of warm-ups but having viewed the Rugby Championship, what state are the Southern Hemisphere’s ‘big three’ in?
A year ago, as an English coaching group I was part of, we highlighted South Africa as a team who may be coming up on the rails. If Rassie Erasmus could get them fit, which is the thing they probably lacked most, they certainly had the players and a competitive advantage with their size. Twelve months on, they’re fitter and they’ll be a force. New Zealand at the moment have lost direction and their attacking shape looks like it’s struggling. At the breakdown they’re not producing enough quick ball and they look a little bit lost at 10 and 15, where they need to identify whether it’s Beauden Barrett or Richie Mo’unga at fly-half. Ben Smith is one of the world’s best full-backs but they’re not playing him there so it seems like a team that’s a bit lost, but you never write them off. Australia showed they could play at a competitive level by beating New Zealand last week and they’ll give teams a go, but can they repeat it over seven games at a World Cup? They probably haven’t been fit enough but they took Dean Benton from England last year, who’s a brilliant S&C coach, and now they look a lot fitter. The change at 9 and 10, with Nic White and Christian Leali’ifano coming in, is also significant. Suddenly they’re looking a lot more dangerous and maybe the adversity caused by the Israel Folau situation is making them bond together as well. It’s good to see a strong Australia.
Back to Harlequins, there’s been a lot of player turnover this summer with 15 in and 17 out, so could that hinder your ability to mount a title challenge?
When Brendan Venter came to Saracens in 2009 there was similar turnover and we reached the Premiership final the following year. There’s a combination of factors in our turnover – salary cap, players retiring, players we wanted to recruit, others we felt weren’t offering us the full package – but hopefully the biggest player movement has happened now and we’ll have a more settled group over the next five to ten years. I believe every single player we’ve recruited will enhance us; they’re all coachable, none are d***heads and they’re all ambitious, ready to accept a challenge, are talented and competitive. Guys like Stephan Lewies and Glen Young were handpicked by me and Alex Codling to enhance our lineout, Scott Baldwin’s a class act at hooker and Tom Lawday’s been a standout back row in pre-season, while Will Evans is getting better and better. We were frustrated to finish fifth last season so we’re aiming to be highly competitive.
“There weren’t enough Quins guys in the England squad but we will support Eddie all the way”